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THE  AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

AND 

KINDRED  AFFECTIONS 


<  \i;i<  \ii  i;i    -'V  r\\i>  i;i;i:ai'  \i(i(ii:i\\- 
w    M    III  \t  Kll;  \  \    \\l«  I  II  \i;i  i:-  i>l(  Ki;\- 


THE  AMENITIES 
OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

AND 
KINDRED  AFFECTIONS 

BY 
A.  EDWARD  NEWTON 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON 

THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 

1918 


COPYRIGHT,    1918,    BT   A.    KOWARO    NEWTON 


DEDICATION 

//,  as  Eugene  Field  suggests,  womenfolk 
are  few  in  that  part  of  paradise  especially 
reserved  for  book-lovers  I  do  not  care.  One 
woman  will  he  there,  for  I  shall  insist  that 
eight  and  twenty  years  probation  entitles 
her  to  share  my  biblio-bliss  above  as  she 
has  shared  it  here  below.  That  woman  is 
my  wife.  a.  edward  newton 

October,  1918 


ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY 

A  MAN  (or  a  woman)  is  the  most  interesting  thing  in 
the  world ;  and  next  is  a  book,  which  enables  one  to 
get  at  the  heart  of  the  mystery;  and  although  not 
many  men  can  say  why  they  are  or  what  they  are, 
any  man  who  publishes  a  book  can,  if  he  is  on  good 
terms  with  his  publisher,  secure  the  use  of  a  little 
space  to  tell  how  the  book  came  to  be  what  it  is. 

Some  years  ago  a  very  learned  friend  of  mine  pub- 
lished a  book,  and  in  the  introduction  warned  the 
"gentle  reader"  to  skip  the  first  chapter,  and,  as  I 
have  always  maintained,  by  inference  suggested  that 
the  rest  was  easy  reading,  which  was  not  the  case. 
In  point  of  fact,  the  book  w^as  not  intended  for  the 
"gentle  reader"  at  all:  it  was  a  book  written  by  a 
scholar  for  the  scholar. 

Now,  I  have  worked  on  a  different  plan.  My  book 
is  written  for  the  "tired  business  man"  (there  are  a 
goodly  number  of  us),  who  flatters  himself  that  he  is 
fond  of  reading;  and  as  it  is  my  first  book,  I  may  be 
permitted  to  tell  how  it  came  to  be  published. 

One  day  in  the  autumn  of  1913,  a  friend,  my  part- 
ner, with  whom  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  be  asso- 
sociated  for  so  many  years,  remarked  that  it  was  time 
for  me  to  take  a  holiday,  and  handed  me  a  copy  of 
the   "Geographical   Magazine."     The  number  was 


viii  ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY 

devoted  to  Ej^ypt;  and,  seduced  by  the  charm  of  the 
illustrations,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  I  decided 
on  a  trip  up  the  Nile. 

Things  moved  rapidly.  In  a  few  weeks  my  wife 
and  I  were  in  the  Mediterranean,  on  a  steamer 
headed  for  Alexandria.  We  had  touched  at  Genoa 
and  were  soon  to  reach  Naples,  when  I  discovered 
a  feeling  of  homesickness  stealing  over  me.  I  have 
spent  my  happiest  holidays  in  London.  Already  I 
had  tired  of  Egypt.  The  Nile  has  been  flowing  for 
centuries  and  would  continue  to  flow.  There  were 
books  to  be  had  in  London,  books  which  would  not 
wait.  Somewhat  shamefacedly  I  put  the  matter  up 
to  my  wife;  and  when  I  discovered  that  she  had  no 
insuperable  objection  to  a  change  of  plan,  we  left  the 
steamer  at  Naples,  and  after  a  few  weeks  with  friends 
in  Rome,  started  en  grande  vitesse  toward  London. 

By  this  time  it  will  have  been  discovered  that  I  am 
not  much  of  a  traveler;  but  I  have  always  loved  Lon- 
don —  London  with  its  wealth  of  literary  and  historic 
association,  with  its  countless  miles  of  streets  lined 
with  inessential  shops  overflowing  with  things  that 
I  don't  want,  and  its  grimy  old  book-shops  over- 
flowing with  things  that  I  do. 

One  gloomy  day  I  picked  up  in  the  Charing  Cross 
Road,  for  a  shilling,  a  delightful  book  by  Richard 
Le  (jallienne,  "Travels  in  England."  Like  myself,  Le 
Gallienne  seems  not  to  have  been  a  great  traveler  — 
he  seldom  reached  the  place  he  started  for;  and  losing 
his  way  or  changing  his  mind,  may  be  said  to  have 


ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY  ix 

arrived  at  his  destination  when  he  has  reached  a  com- 
fortable inn,  where,  after  a  simple  meal,  he  lights  his 
pipe  and  proceeds  to  read  a  book. 

Exactly  my  idea  of  travel!  The  last  time  I  read 
*' Pickwick"  was  while  making  a  tour  in  Northern 
Italy.  It  is  wonderful  how  conducive  to  reading  I 
found  the  stuffy  smoking-rooms  of  the  little  steamers 
that  dart  like  water-spiders  from  one  landing  to  an- 
other on  the  Italian  Lakes. 

It  was  while  I  was  poking  about  among  the  old 
book-shops  that  it  occurred  to  me  to  write  a  little 
story  about  my  books  —  when  and  where  I  had 
bought  them,  the  prices  I  had  paid,  and  the  men  I 
had  bought  them  from,  many  of  whom  I  knew  well; 
and  so,  when  my  holiday  was  done,  I  lived  over  again 
its  pleasant  associations  in  writing  a  paper  that  I 
called  "Book-Collecting  Abroad."  Subsequently  I 
wrote  another,  —  "Book-Collecting  at  Home,"  —  it 
being  my  purpose  to  print  these  papers  in  a  little 
volume  to  be  called  "The  Amenities  of  Book-Col- 
lecting." I  intended  this  for  distribution  among  my 
friends,  who  are  very  patient  with  me;  and  I  sent 
my  manuscript  to  a  printer  in  the  closing  days  of 
July,  1914.  A  few  days  later  something  happened 
in  Europe,  the  end  of  which  is  not  yet  and  w^e  all 
became  panic-stricken.  For  a  moment  it  seemed  un- 
likely that  one  would  care  ever  to  open  a  book  again. 
Acting  upon  impulse,  I  withdrew  the  order  from  my 
printer,  put  my  manuscript  aside,. and  devoted  my- 
self to  my  usual  task  —  that  of  making  a  living. 


X  ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY 

Byron  says,  "The  end  of  all  scri})blement  is  to 
amuse."  For  some  years  I  have  been  possessed  of  an 
itch  for  "scribblement";  gradually  this  feeling  reas- 
serted itself,  and  I  came  to  see  that  we  must  become 
accustomed  to  working  in  a  world  at  war,  and  to 
realizing  that  life  must  be  permitted  to  resume,  at 
least  to  some  extent,  its  regular  course;  and  the  idea 
of  my  little  book  recurred  to  me. 

It  had  frequently  been  suggested  by  friends  that 
my  papers  be  published  in  the  "Atlantic."  \Miat 
grudge  they  bore  this  excellent  magazine  I  do  not 
know,  but  they  always  said  the  "Atlantic";  and  so, 
when  one  day  I  came  across  my  manuscript,  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that  it  would  cost  only  a  few  cents  to  lay 
it  before  the  editor.  At  that  time  I  did  not  know  the 
editor  of  the  "Atlantic"  even  by  name.  My  pleasure 
then  can  be  imagined  when,  a  week  or  so  later,  I  re- 
ceived the  following  letter:  — 

Oct.  30,  1914. 

Dear  Mr.  Newton:  — 

The  enthusiasm  of  your  pleasant  paper  is  contagious, 
and  I  find  myself  in  odd  moments  looking  at  the  gaps  in 
my  own  library  with  a  feeling  of  dismay.  I  believe  that 
very  many  readers  of  the  "Atlantic"  will  feel  as  I  do,  and 
it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  accept  your  paper. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Ellery  Sedgwick. 

Shortly  afterward,  a  check  for  a  substantial  sum 
fluttered  down  upon  my  desk,  and  it  was  impossible 
thatT  should  not  remember  how  much  Milton  had 


ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY  xi 

received  for  his  "Paradise  Lost," — the  receipt  for 
which  is  in  the  British  Museum,  —  and  draw  con- 
clusions therefrom  entirely  satisfactory  to  my  self- 
esteem.  My  paper  was  published,  and  the  maga- 
zine, having  a  hardy  constitution,  survived;  I  even 
received  some  praise.  There  was  nothing  important 
enough  to  justify  criticism,  and  as  a  result  of  this 
chance  publication  I  made  a  number  of  delightful 
acquaintances  among  readers  and  collectors,  many  of 
whom  I  might  almost  call  friends  although  we  have 
never  met. 

Not  wishing  to  strain  the  rather  precarious  friend- 
ship with  Mr.  Sedgwick  which  was  the  outcome  of 
my  first  venture,  it  was  several  years  before  I  ven- 
tured to  try  him  with  another  paper.  This  I  called 
*'A  Ridiculous  Philosopher."  I  enjoyed  writing  this 
paper  immensely,  and  although  it  was  the  reverse  of 
timely,  I  felt  that  it  might  pass  editorial  scrutiny. 
Again  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Sedgwick,  in  which 
he  said:  — 

Two  days  ago  I  took  your  paper  home  with  me  and 
spent  a  delightful  half -hour  with  it.  Now,  as  any  editor 
would  tell  you,  there  is  no  valid  reason  for  a  paper  on 
Godwin  at  this  time,  but  your  essay  is  so  capitally  sea- 
soned that  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to  part  with  it. 
Indeed  I  have  been  gradually  making  the  editorial  dis- 
covery that,  if  a  paper  is  sufficiently  readable,  it  has  some 
claim  upon  the  public,  regardless  of  what  the  plans  of  the 
editor  are.  And  so  the  upshot  of  my  deliberation  is  that 
we  shall  accept  your  paper  with  great  pleasure  and  publish 
it  when  the  opportunity  occurs. 


xii  ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY 

The  paper  appeared  in  due  course,  and  several 
more  followed.  The  favor  with  which  these  papers 
were  received  led  the  "Atlantic"  editors  to  the 
consideration  of  their  reprint  in  permanent  form,  to- 
gether with  several  which  now  appear  for  the  first 
time.  All  the  illustrations  have  been  made  from 
items  in  my  own  collection.  I  am  thus  tying  a  string, 
as  it  were,  around  a  parcel  which  contains  the  result 
of  thirty-six  years  of  collecting.  It  may  not  be  much, 
but,  as  the  Irishman  said  of  his  dog,  "It's  mine 
own."  My  volume  might,  with  propriety,  be  called 
"Newton's  Complete  Recreations." 

I  have  referred  to  my  enjoj^ment  in  writing  my 
"Ridiculous  Philosopher."  I  might  say  the  same 
of  all  my  papers.  I  am  aware  that  my  friend,  Dr. 
Johnson,  once  remarked  that  no  man  but  a  fool 
writes  a  book  except  for  money.  At  some  risk,  then, 
I  admit  that  I  have  done  so.  I  have  written  for 
fun,  and  my  papers  should  be  read,  if  read  at  all, 
for  the  same  purpose,  not  that  the  reader  will  or  is 
expected  to  laugh  loud.  The  loud  laugh,  in  Gold- 
smith's phrase,  it  may  be  remembered,  bespeaks  the 
vacant  mind.  But  I  venture  to  hope  that  the  judi- 
cious will  pass  a  not  unpleasant  hour  in  turning  my 
pages. 

One  final  word:  I  buy,  I  collect  "Presentation 
Books";  and  I  trust  my  friends  will  not  think  me 
churlish  when  I  say  that  it  is  not  my  intention  to 
turn  a  single  copy  of  this,  my  book,  into  a  presenta- 
tion volume.  Whatever  circulation  it  may  have  must 


ESSAY  INTRODUCTORY  xiii 

be  upon  its  own  merits.  Any  one  who  sees  this  book 
in  the  hands  of  a  reader,  on  the  library  table,  or  on 
the  shelves  of  the  collector,  may  be  sure  that  some 
one,  either  wise  or  foolish  as  the  event  may  prove, 
has  paid  a  substantial  sum  for  it,  either  in  the  current 
coin  of  the  realm,  or  perchance  in  thrift  stamps.  It 
may,  indeed,  be  that  it  has  been  secured  from  a  lend- 
ing library,  in  which  case  I  would  suggest  that  the 
book  be  returned  instantly.  "Go  ye  rather  to  them 
that  sell  and  buy  for  yourselves."  And  having  sepa- 
rated yourself  from  your  money,  in  the  event  that 
you  should  feel  vexed  with  your  bargain,  you  are  at 
liberty  to  communicate  your  grievance  to  the  pub- 
lisher, securing  from  him  what  redress  you  may;  and 
in  the  event  of  failure  there  yet  remains  your  in- 
alienable right,  which  should  afford  some  satisfaction, 
that  of  damning 

The  Author. 

"Oak  Knoll," 

Daylesford,  Pennsylvania, 

April  7,  1918. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

I.  Book-Collecting  Abroad 1 

II.  Book-Collecting  at  Home 36 

III.  Old  Catalogues  and  New  Prices  .        .        .        .65 

IV.  "Association"  Books  AND  First  Editions     .        .  107 
V.  "  What  Might  Have  Been  " 129 

VI.  James  Boswell  —  His  Book 145 

VII.  A  Light-Blue  Stocking 186 

VIII.  A  Ridiculous  Philosopher 226 

IX.  A  Great  Victorian 249 

X.  Temple  Bar  Then  and  Now 267 

XI.  A  Macaroni  Parson 292 

XII.  Oscar  Wilde 318 

Xin.  A  Word  in  Memory 343 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Caricature  of  Two  Great  Victorians  .  Frontispiece  in  Color 

W.  M.  Thackeray  and  Charles  Dickens 

Title  OF  "Paradise  Lost.  "  First  Edition     ....      6 

Title  of  Franklin's  Edition  of  Cicero's  "Cato  Major"    9 

Letter  of  Thomas  Hardy  to  his   First   Publisher, 
"Old  Tinsley" 12 

Page   of  Original   MS.  of  Hardy's   "Far  from  the 
Madding  Crowd  " 14 

Bernard  Quaritch 14 

Title  of  MS.  of  "  Lyford  Redivivus  " 16 

Bernard  iVlfred  Quaritch 16 

Samuel  Johnson 20 

Painted  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  about  1770,  for  Johnson's  Step- 
Daughter,  Lucy  Porter.   Engraved  by  Watson 

Page  of  Prayer  in  Dr.  Johnson's  Autograph    ...    23 

Title  of  Keats's  Copy  of  Spenser's  Works       ...    24 

Portrait  of  Tennyson  reading  "jVL^ud"  to  the  Brown- 
ings, BY  ROSSETTI 26 

Dr.  Johnson's  Church,  St.  Clement  Danes       ...    31 

From  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  by  Charles  G.  Osgood 

Inscription  to  Mrs.  Thrale  in  Dr.  Johnson's  Hand     .    32 

Inscription  to  General  Sir  A.  Gordon  in  Queen  Vic- 
toria's Hand 35 

George  D.  Smith 36 

Photographed  by  Genthe 


x^iii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

AuTCXJRAPn  MS.  OF  L.vmb's  Poem,  "Elegy  on  a  Quid  of 
Tobacco" 40 

Dr.  a.  S.  W.  Rosenbach 4'-2 

Photographed  by  Genthe 

Title  OF  "Robinson  Crusoe.  "   First  Edition       ...    45 
Title  OF  "Oliver  Twist" 47 

Presentation  Copy  to  W.  C.  Macready 

Original  Illustration  FOR  "Vanity  Fair"         ...     48 

Becky  Sharp  throwing  Dr.  Johnson's  "Dixonary"  out  of  the 
carriage  window,  as  she  leaves  Miss  Pinkcrton's  S<'hooI. 

From  the  first  pen-and-ink  sketch,  by  Thackeray,  afterwards 
elaborated. 

Specimen  Proof-Sheet  of  George  Moore's  "Memoirs 
OF  My  Dead  Life" 50 

Title  of  George  Moore's  "Pagan  Poems"        .       .       .51 

Presentation  Copy  to  Oscar  AVilde. 

Title  of  Blake's  "Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell"    .    5^2 

Charles  Laaib's  House  at  Enfield 54 

Inscription  by  Joseph  Conrad  in  a  copy  of  "The  Nigger 
OF  THE  '  Narcissus  ' " 50 

The  Author's  Book-Plate 60 

Henry  E.  Huntington 7'1 

Stoke  Poges  Church 74 

A  fine  example  of  fore-edge  painting. 

Title  of  Blake's  "  Songs  of  Innocence  and  Experience  "     80 
"A  Leaf  FROM  AN  Unopened  Vollt^ie" 82 

Specimen  page  of  an  unpublished  manuscript  of  Charlotte  IJronte 

Title  of  the  Kilmarnock  Edition  of  Burns's  Poems    .     85 
Fifteenth-Century  English  MS.  on  Vellum  : 

BoETHIUs's  "  De  CoN.SOL.\TIONE  PlIILOSOPHI.E  "        .         .      90 

Title  of  George  Herbert's  "The  Temple."  First  Edition    97 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xix 

FmsT  Page  of  a  Rare  Editiox  of  "Robinson  Crusoe"     102 

Autograph  MS.  of  a  Poem  by  Keats  —  "To  the  Misses 
M at  Hastings" 105 

Inscription  to  Swinburne  from  Dante  Rossetti    .      .106 

Autograph  Inscription  by  Stevenson,  in  a  Copy  of  his 
"Inland  Voyage" 109 

Title  of  a  Unique  Copy  of  Stevenson's  "Child's  Gar- 
den of  Verses"     110 

New  Building  of  the  Grolier  Club 114 

Inscription  to  Charles  Dickens,  Junior,  from  Charles 
Dickens 116 

Illustration,  "The  Last  of  the  Spirits,"  by  John  Leech 

FOR  Dickens's  "Christmas  Carol" 116 

From  the  original  water-color  drawing. 

Autograph   Dedication   to  Dickens's   "The  Village 
Coquettes" 118 

Title  of  Meredith's  "Modern  Love,"  with  Autograph 
Inscription  to  Swinburne 121 

Inscription  by  Dr.  Johnson  in  a  Copy  of  "Rasselas"  .  125 

Inscription  by  Woodrow  Wilson, in  a  Copy  of  his  "Con- 
stitutional Government  of  the  United  States"       .  126 

Inscription  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley         .      .       .       ,128 

Charles  Lamb 130 

Frances  Maria  Kelly 132 

Miss  Kelly  in  Various  Characters 136 

MS.  Dedication  of  Lamb's  ^YoRKs  to  Miss  Kelly   .      .  137 

Autograph  Letter  of  Lamb  to  Miss  Kelly      .        .       .139 

Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  144 


XX  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Jaaies  Boswell  of  AurnixLECK,  Esqr 146 

Painted  by  Sir  Joshua  Ileynolds.  Engraved  by  John  Jones. 

Samuel  Johnson  in  a  Tie- Wig 150 

Paintinl  by  Sir  Joshua  lleynolds.  Engraved  by  Zolx*l 

Inscription  to  Rev.  William  J.  Temple,  from  J.\mes 
BoswELi 159 

Title  OF  Mason's  "  Elfrida.  "   First  Edition       .       .       .  1G3 

MS.  OF  Boswell's  Agreement  with  Mr.  Dilly,  recit- 
ing THE  Terms  agreed  on  for  the  Publication  of 
"Corsica" 167 

MS.  Indorsement  by  Boswell  on  the  First  Paper  drawn 
BY  him  as  an  Advocate 168 

Dr.  Johnson  in  Traveling  Dress,  as  described  in 
Boswell's  "Tour" 174 

Engraved  by  Trotter. 

Inscription  to  J.\mes  Boswell,  JL^^OR,  from  James 
Boswell 176 

Samuel  Johnson 184 

Painted  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  Engraved  by  Heath. 

Inscription  to  Edmund  Bltike,  by  James  Boswell  .       .  185 
Mrs.  Piozzi ...  186 

Engraved  by  Ridley  from  a  miniature. 

Extract  from  MS.  Letter  of  Mrs.  Thrale       .       .       .191 
Title  of  Miss  Burney's  "Evelina,"   First  Edition  .       .  199 

Mrs.  Thrale's  Breakfast-Table 200 

S.\muel  Johnson.  The  "Streatham  Portrait"  .       .       .  204 

Painted  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  Engraved  by  Doughty. 

MS.  Inscriptions  by  Mrs.  Thrale 206 

Title  of  "The  Prince  of  Abissinia"  ("Rasselas"). 
First  Edition 207 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxi 

MS.  OF  THE  Last  Page  of  Mrs.  Thrale's  "Journal  of  a 
Tour  in  Wales" 219 

Miss  Amy  Lo"\\'ell,  of  Boston 222 

Samuel  Johnson 225 

William  Godwin,  the  Ridiculous  Philosopher        .       .  227 

Charles  Lazmb's  Play-Bill  of  Godwin's  "Antonio  "      .  236 

MS.  Letter  from  William  Godwin 241 

Anthony  Trollope 250 

From  a  photograph  b}'  Elliot  and  Fry. 

Temple  Bar  as  it  is  To-Day 268 

Old  Temple  Bar:  Demolished  in  1666 276 

Temple  Bar  in  Dr.  Johnson's  Time 280 

Temple  Bar 291 

First  Page  of  Dr.  Johnson's  Petition  to  the  King  on 
Behalf  of  Dr.  Dodd 306 

Mr.  Allen's  Copy  of  the  Last  Letter  Dr.  Dodd  sent 
Dr.  Johnson 312 

Caricature  of  Oscar  Wilde 319 

From  an  original  drawing  by  Aubrey  Beardsley. 

"Our  Oscar"   as   he   was  when  we   loaned  him  to 
America 326 

From  a  contemporary  English  caricature. 

MS.  Inscription  to  J.  E.  Dickinson,  from  Oscar  Wilde  .  342 

Harry  Elkins  Widener 344 

Title  of  Stevenson's  "Memoirs  of  Himself"    .       .       .  349 
Printed  for  private  distribution  only,  by  Mr.  Widener. 

Beverly  Chew 350 

Henry  E.  Huntington  among  his  Books      ....  352 

Photographed  by  Genthe. 

Harry  Elkins  Widener's  Book-Plate 355 


THE  AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

AND 
KINDRED  AFFECTIONS 

I 

BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD 

If  my  early  training  has  been  correct,  which  I  am 
much  incHned  to  doubt,  we  were  not  designed  to  be 
happy  in  this  world.  We  were  simply  placed  here  to 
be  tried,  and  doubtless  we  are  —  it  is  a  trying  place. 
It  is,  however,  the  only  world  we  are  sure  of;  so,  in 
spite  of  our  training,  we  endeavor  to  make  the  best 
of  it,  and  have  invented  a  lot  of  little  tricks  with 
which  to  beguile  the  time. 

The  approved  time-killer  is  work,  and  we  do  a  lot  of 
it.  When  it  is  quite  unnecessary,  we  say  it  is  in  the 
interest  of  civilization ;  and  occasionally  work  is  done 
on  so  high  a  plane  that  it  becomes  sport,  and  we 
call  these  sportsmen,  *' Captains  of  Industry."  One  of 
them  once  told  me  that  making  money  was  the  finest 
sport  in  the  world.  This  was  before  the  rules  of  the 
game  were  changed. 

But  for  the  relaxation  of  those  whose  life  is  spent 
in  a  persistent  effort  to  make  ends  meet,  games  of 
skill,  games  of  chance,  and  kissing  games  have  been 
invented,  and  indoor  and  outdoor  sports.    These  are 


2  AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

all  very  well  for  those  who  can  play  them;  but  I  am 
like  the  little  boy  who  declined  to  play  Old  Maid  be- 
cause he  was  always  "it."  Having  early  discovered 
that  I  was  always  "it"  in  every  game,  I  decided  to 
take  my  recreation  in  another  way.  I  read  occasion- 
ally and  have  always  been  a  collector. 

Many  years  ago,  in  an  effort  to  make  conversation 
on  a  train,  —  a  foolish  thing  to  do,  —  I  asked  a  man 
what  he  did  with  his  leisure,  and  his  reply  was,  "I  play 
cards.  I  used  to  read  a  good  deal  but  I  wanted  some- 
thing to  occupy  my  mind,  so  I  took  to  cards."  It  was 
a  disconcerting  answer. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  not  all  of  us  can  read  all 
the  time.  For  those  who  cannot  and  for  those  to  whom 
sport  in  any  form  is  a  burden  not  to  be  endured,  there 
is  one  remaining  form  of  exercise,  the  riding  of  a 
hobby  —  collecting,  it  is  called ;  and  the  world  is  so 
full  of  such  wonderful  things  that  we  collectors  should 
be  as  happy  as  kings.  Horace  Greelej^  once  said, 
"Young  man,  go  West."  I  give  advice  as  valuable 
and  more  easily  followed:  I  say.  Young  man,  get  a 
hobby;  preferably  get  two,  one  for  indoors  and  one 
for  out;  get  a  pair  of  hobby-horses  that  can  safely 
be  ridden  in  opposite  directions. 

We  collectors  strive  to  make  converts;  we  want 
others  to  enjoy  what  we  enjoy;  and  I  may  as  well  con- 
fess that  the  envy  shown  by  our  fellow  collectors 
when  we  display  our  treasures  is  not  annoying  to  us. 
But,  speaking  generally,  we  are  a  bearable  lot,  our 
hobbies  are  usually  harmless,  and  if  we  loathe  the 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  3 

subject  of  automobiles,  and  especially  discussion  rela- 
tive to  parts  thereof,  we  try  to  show  an  intelligent 
interest  in  another's  hobby,  even  if  it  happen  to  be 
a  collection  of  postage-stamps.  Our  own  hobby  may 
be,  probably  is,  ridiculous  to  some  one  else,  but  in  all 
the  wide  range  of  human  interest,  from  postage- 
stamps  to  paintings,  —  the  sport  of  the  millionaire, 
—  there  is  nothing  that  begins  so  easily  and  takes  us 
so  far  as  the  collecting  of  books. 

And  hear  me.  If  you  would  know  the  delight  of 
book-collecting,  begin  with  something  else,  I  care  not 
what.  Book-collecting  has  all  the  advantages  of 
other  hobbies  without  their  drawbacks.  The  pleasure 
of  acquisition  is  common  to  all  —  that's  where  the 
sport  lies;  but  the  strain  of  the  possession  of  books  is 
almost  nothing;  a  tight,  dry  closet  will  serve  to  house 
them,  if  need  be. 

It  is  not  so  with  flowers.  They  are  a  constant  care. 
Some  one  once  wrote  a  poem  about  "old  books  and 
fresh  flowers."  It  lilted  along  very  nicely;  but  I  re- 
mark that  books  stay  old,  indeed  get  older,  and  flowers 
do  not  stay  fresh:  a  little  too  much  rain,  a  little  too 
much  sun,  and  it  is  all  over. 

Pets  die  too,  in  spite  of  constant  care  —  perhaps 
by  reason  of  it.  To  quiet  a  teething  dog  I  once  took 
him,  her,  it,  to  my  room  for  the  night  and  slept 
soundly.  Next  morning  I  found  that  the  dog  had 
committed  suicide  by  jumping  out  of  the  window. 

The  joys  of  rugs  are  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  They 
cannot  be  picked  up  here  and  there,  tucked  in  a 


4  AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

traveling-hag,  and  smuggled  into  the  house;  they 
are  hard  to  transport,  there  are  no  auction  records 
against  them,  and  the  rug  market  knows  no  bottom. 
I  never  yet  heard  a  man  admit  paying  a  fair  price  for 
a  rug,  much  less  a  high  one.  "Look  at  this  Schera- 
zak,"  a  friend  remarks;  "I  paid  only  nine  dollars 
for  it  and  it's  worth  five  hundred  if  it's  worth  a 
penny."  When  he  is  compelled  to  sell  his  collection, 
owing  to  an  unlucky  turn  in  the  market,  it  brings 
seventeen-fifty.  And  rugs  are  ever  a  loafing  place  for 
moths  —  But  that 's  a  chapter  by  itself. 

AVorst  of  all,  there  is  no  literature  about  them.  I 
know  very  well  that  there  are  books  about  rugs;  I 
own  some.  But  as  all  books  are  not  literature,  so  all 
literature  is  not  in  books.  Can  a  rug-collector  enjoy 
a  catalogue?  I  sometimes  think  that  for  the  over- 
worked business  man  a  book-catalogue  is  the  best 
reading  there  is.  Did  you  ever  see  a  rug-collector, 
pencil  in  hand,  poring  over  a  rug-catalogue.'* 

Print-catalogues  there  are;  and  now  I  warm  a  lit- 
tle. They  give  descriptions  that  mean  something;  a 
scene  may  have  a  reminiscent  value,  a  portrait  sug- 
gests a  study  in  biography.  Then  there  are  dimen- 
sions for  those  who  are  fond  of  figures  and  states  and 
margins,  and  the  most  ignorant  banker  will  tell  you 
that  a  wide  margin  is  always  better  than  a  narrow 
one.  Prices,  too,  can  be  looked  up  and  compared,  and 
results,  satisfactory  or  otherwise,  recorded.  Prints, 
too,  can  be  snugly  housed  in  portfolios.  But  for  a 
lasting  hobby  give  me  books. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  5 

Book-collectors  are  constantly  being  ridiculed  by 
scholars  for  the  pains  they  take  and  the  money  they 
spend  on  first  editions  of  their  favorite  authors;  and 
it  must  be  that  they  smart  under  the  criticism,  for 
they  are  always  explaining,  and  attempting  rather 
foolishly  to  justify  their  position.  Would  it  not  be 
better  to  say,  as  Leslie  Stephen  did  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
rough  sayings,  that  "it  is  quite  useless  to  defend  them 
to  any  one  who  cannot  enjoy  them  without  defense".'^ 

I  am  not  partial  to  the  "books  which  no  gentle- 
man's library  should  be  without,"  fashionable  a  gen- 
eration or  two  ago.  The  works  of  Thomas  Frognall 
Dibdin  do  not  greatly  interest  me,  and  where  will  one 
find  room  to-day  for  Audubon's  "Birds"  or  Roberts's 
"Holy  Land"  except  on  a  billiard-table  or  under  a  bed.^^ 

The  very  great  books  of  the  past  have  become  so 
rare,  so  high-priced,  that  it  is  almost  useless  for  the 
ordinary  collector  to  hope  ever  to  own  them,  and  fash- 
ion changes  in  book-collecting  as  in  everything  else. 
Aldines  and  Elzevirs  are  no  longer  sought.  Our  in- 
terest in  the  Classics  being  somewhat  abated,  we  pass 
them  over  in  favor  of  books  which,  we  tell  ourselves, 
we  expect  some  day  to  read,  the  books  written  by  men 
of  whose  lives  we  know  something.  I  would  rather 
have  a  "Paradise  Lost"  with  the  first  title-page,^  in 

^  The  facsimile  (page  6)  is  from  the  first  edition,  with  tlie  first 
title-page.  From  the  Hagen  collection.  Mr.  Hagen  has  written  on  the 
fly-leaf,  "  Rebound  from  original  calf  binding  which  was  too  far  gone 
to  repair."  In  the  process  of  binding  it  was  seen  that  the  title-page 
was  part  of  a  signature  and  not  a  separate  leaf  as  in  the  case  of  the 
issue  with  the  "  Second  "  title,  1667,  which  would  seem  to  settle  the 
priority  of  these  two  titles. 


Paradife  loft. 

A 

POEM 

Written  in 

TEN    BOOKS 

By  JOHN  MILTON. 


Licenfed  and  Entred  according 
to  Order. 


L  0  t^  D  0  l^ 

Printed,  and  are  to  be  fold  by  Teter  ParJ^er 
under  Creed  Church  ncer  Aldgate  s  And  by 

Halfirt  BmlterjA  tllC  Tmkj  Head'm  BiJhopf^att'^rtH', 

And  MjtduM  Walk^ ,  under  St.  Dunfimt  Church 

in  ^leet-fircet ,   i  d  6  7. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  7 

contemporary  binding,  or  an  "Angler,"  than  all  the 
Aldines  and  Elzevirs  ever  printed. 

That  this  feeling  is  general,  accounts,  I  take  it,  for 
the  excessively  high  prices  now  being  paid  for  first 
editions  of  modern  authors  like  Shelley,  Keats,  Lamb, 
and,  to  come  right  down  to  our  own  day,  Stevenson. 
Would  not  these  authors  be  amazed  could  they  know 
in  what  esteem  they  are  held,  and  what  fabulous 
prices  are  paid  for  volumes  which,  when  they  were 
published,  fell  almost  stillborn  from  the  press .^^  We 
all  know  the  story  of  Fitzgerald's  "Rubaiyat":  how 
a  "remainder"  was  sold  by  Quaritch  at  a  penny  the 
copy.  It  is  now  worth  its  weight  in  gold,  and  Keats's 
"Endymion,"  once  a  "remainder"  bought  by  a  Lon- 
don bookseller  at  fourpence,  now  commands  several 
hundred  dollars.  I  paid  three  hundred  and  sixty  dol- 
lars for  mine  —  but  it  was  once  Wordsworth's  and 
has  his  name  on  the  title-page. 

But  it  is  well  in  book-collecting,  while  not  omitting 
the  present,  never  to  neglect  the  past.  "Old  books 
are  best,"  says  Beverly  Chew,  beloved  of  all  col- 
lectors; and  I  recall  Lowell's  remark:  "There  is  a  sense 
of  security  in  an  old  book  which  time  has  criticized 
for  us."  It  was  a  recollection  of  these  sayings  that 
prompted  me,  if  prompting  was  necessary,  to  pay  a 
fabulous  price  the  other  day  for  a  copy  of  "Hesper- 
ides,  or  the  Works  both  Humane  and  Divine  of  Robert 
Herrick,  Esq.,"  a  beautiful  copy  of  the  first  edition 
in  the  original  sheep. 

We  collectors  know  the  saying  of  Bacon:  "Some 


8         AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed  and 

some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested  ";  but  the  revised 

version  is,  Some  books  are  to  be  read,  others  are  to  be 

collected.   Mere  reading  books,  the  five-foot  shelf,  or 

the  hundred  best,  every  one  knows  at  least  by  name. 

But  at  the  moment  I  am  concerned  with  collectors' 

books    and    the  amenities  of    book-collecting;    for, 

frankly,  — 

I  am  one  of  those  who  seek 
What  Bibliomaniacs  love. 

Some  subjects  are  not  for  me.  Sydney  Smith's 
question,  "Who  reads  an  American  book.'^"  has,  I 
am  sure,  been  answered;  and  I  am  equally  sure  that 
I  do  not  know  what  the  answer  is.  "Americana"  — 
which  was  not  what  Sydney  Smith  meant  —  have 
never  caught  me,  nor  has  "black  letter."  It  is  not 
necessary  for  me  to  study  how  to  tell  a  Caxton.  Cax- 
tons  do  not  fall  in  my  way,  except  single  leaves  now 
and  then,  and  these  I  take  as  Goldsmith  took  his 
religion,  on  faith. 

Nor  am  I  the  rival  of  the  man  who  buys  all  his 
books  from  Quaritch.  Buying  from  Quaritch  is  rather 
too  much  like  the  German  idea  of  hunting:  namely, 
sitting  in  an  easy  chair  near  a  breach  in  the  wall 
through  which  game,  big  or  little,  is  shooed  within 
easy  reach  of  your  gun.  No,  my  idea  of  collecting 
is  "watchful  waiting,"  in  season  and  out,  in  places 
likely  and  unlikely,  most  of  all  in  London.  But  one 
need  not  begin  in  London:  one  can  begin  wherever 
one  has  pitched  one's  tent. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  9 

I  have  long  wanted  Franklin's  "Cato  Major." 
A  copy  was  found  not  long  ago  in  a  farmhouse  garret 
in  my  own  county;  but,  unluckily,  I  did  not  hear  of  it 
until  its  price,  through  successive  hands,  had  reached 
three  hundred  dollars. 
But  if  one  does  not  be- 
gin in  London,  one  ends 
there.  It  is  the  great 
market  of  the  world  for 
collectors'  books  —  the 
best  market,  not  neces- 
sarily the  cheapest. 

My  first  purchase  was 
a  Bohn  edition  of  Pope's 
Homer,  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey  in  two  vol- 
umes —  not  a  bad  start 
for  a  boy;  and  under 
my  youthful  signature, 
with  a  fine  flourish,  is 
the  date,  1882. 

I  read  them  with  de- 
light,   and    was    sorry 

when  I  learned  that  Pope  is  by  no  means  Homer.  I 
have  been  a  little  chary  about  reading  ever  since.  We 
collectors  might  just  as  well  wait  until  scholars  settle 
these  questions. 

I  have  always  liked  Pope.  In  reading  him  one  has 
the  sense  of  progress  from  idea  to  idea,  not  a  mere 
floundering  about  in  Arcady  amid  star-stuff.    When 


M.T.CICERO*s 

CATO  MAJOR, 

OR     HIS 

DISCOURSE 

OLD-AGE: 

Widi  Explanatory  NOTES. 


•$3>§ 


PHILADELPHIA* 

Printed  and  Sold  by  R  FRANKLIN, 
MDCCXLIV. 


10        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Dr.  Johnson  was  asked  what  poetry  is,  he  repHed, 
*'It  is  much  easier  to  say  what  it  is  not."  He  was 
sparring  for  time  and  finally  remarked,  "If  Pope  is 
not  poetry  it  is  useless  to  look  for  it." 

Years  later,  when  I  learned  from  Oscar  Wilde  that 
there  are  two  ways  of  disliking  poetry,  —  one  is  to 
dislike  it,  and  the  other,  to  like  Pope,  —  I  found  that 
I  was  not  entirely  prepared  to  change  my  mind  about 
Pope. 

In  1884  I  went  to  London  for  the  first  time,  and 
there  I  fell  under  the  lure  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  Charles 
Lamb.  After  that,  the  deluge! 

The  London  of  1884  was  the  London  of  Dickens. 
There  have  been  greater  changes  since  I  first  wan- 
dered in  the  purlieus  of  the  Strand  and  Holborn  than 
there  were  in  the  hundred  years  before.  Dickens's 
London  has  vanished  almost  as  completely  as  the  Lon- 
don of  Johnson.  One  landmark  after  another  disap- 
peared, until  finally  the  County  Council  made  one 
grand  sweep  with  Aldwych  and  Kingsway.  But  never 
to  be  forgotten  are  the  rambles  I  enjoyed  with  my  first 
bookseller,  Fred  Hutt  of  Clement's  Inn  Passage,  sub- 
sequently of  Red  Lion  Passage,  now  no  more.  Poor 
fellow!  when,  early  in  1914,  I  went  to  look  him  up, 
I  found  that  he  had  passed  away,  and  his  shop  was 
being  dismantled.  He  was  the  last  of  three  brothers, 
all  booksellers. 

From  Hutt  I  received  my  first  lesson  in  bibli- 
ography; from  him  I  bought  my  first  "Christmas 
Carol,"  with  "Stave  1,"  not  "Stave  One,"  and  with 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  11 

the  green  end-papers.  I  winced  at  the  price:  it  was 
thirty  shilHngs.  I  saw  one  marked  twenty  guineas  not 
long  ago.  From  Hutt,  too,  I  got  a  copy  of  Swin- 
burne's "Poems  and  Ballads,"  1866,  with  the  Moxon 
imprint,  and  had  pointed  out  to  me  the  curious  eccen- 
tricity of  type  on  page  222.  I  did  not  then  take  his 
advice  and  pay  something  over  two  pounds  for  a  copy 
of  "Desperate  Remedies."  It  seemed  wiser  to  wait 
until  the  price  reached  forty  pounds,  which  I  sub- 
sequently paid  for  it.  But  I  did  buy  from  him  for 
five  shillings  an  autograph  letter  of  Thomas  Hardy  to 
his  first  publisher,  "  old  Tinsley."  As  the  details  throw 
some  light  on  the  subject  of  Hardy's  first  book,  I 
reproduce  the  letter,  from  which  it  will  be  seen  that 
Hardy  financed  the  publication  himself. 

"When,  thirty  years  ago,  I  picked  up  my  Hardy 
letter  for  a  few  shillings,  I  never  supposed  that  the 
time  would  come  when  I  would  own  the  complete 
manuscript  of  one  of  his  most  famous  novels.  Yet 
so  it  is.  Not  long  since,  quite  unexpectedly,  the  orig- 
inal draft  of  "Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd"  turned 
up  in  London.  Its  author,  when  informed  of  its  dis- 
covery, wrote  saying  that  he  had  "supposed  the 
manuscript  had  been  pulped  ages  ago."  One  page 
only  was  missing;  Mr.  Hardy  supplied  it.  Then 
arose  the  question  of  ownership,  which  was  grace- 
fully settled  by  sending  it  to  the  auction-room,  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  to  go  to  the  British  Red  Cross. 
I  cannot  say  that  the  bookseller  who  bought  it  gave 
it  to  me  exactly,  but  we  both  agree  that  it  is  an  item 


^  i     f  /    ,    ' 
9(a^iJ  Y^  (Zu^  M%u^  ^  fk^  ly   /tc  ^[p^ 

LETTER  OF  THOMAS  HARDY  TO  HIS  FIRST  PUBLISHER,  "OLD  TINSLEY" 

I  paid  five  shillings  for  this  letter  many  years  ago,  in  London.  Maggys,  in  his  last 
catalogue,  prices  at  fifteen  guineas  a  much  less  interesting  letter  from  Hardy  to 
Arthur  Symons,  dated  December  4, 191S,  on  the  same  subject. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  13 

which  does  honor  to  any  collection.  Although  it  is 
the  original  draft,  there  are  very  few  corrections  or 
interlineations,  the  page  reproduced  (see  next  page) 
being  fairly  representative. 

Only  those  who  are  trying  to  complete  their  sets 
of  Hardy  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  find  "  Desperate 
Remedies"  and  "Under  the  Greenwood  Tree"  "in 
cloth  as  issued." 

My  love  for  book-collecting  and  my  love  for  Lon- 
don have  gone  hand  in  hand.  From  the  first,  London 
with  its  wealth  of  literary  and  historic  interest  has 
held  me;  there  has  never  been  a  time,  not  even  on  that 
gloomy  December  day  twenty  years  ago,  when,  with 
injuries  subsequently  diagnosed  as  a  "compound 
comminuted  tibia  and  fibula,"  I  was  picked  out  of  an 
overturned  cab  and  taken  to  St.  Bartholomew's  Hos- 
pital for  repairs,  that  I  could  not  say  with  Boswell, 
"There  is  a  city  called  London  for  which  I  have  as 
violent  an  affection  as  the  most  romantic  lover  ever 
had  for  his  mistress." 

The  book-shops  of  London  have  been  the  subject 
of  many  a  song  in  prose  and  verse.  Every  taste  and 
pocket  can  be  satisfied.  I  have  ransacked  the  wretched 
little  shops  to  be  found  in  the  by-streets  of  Holborn 
one  day,  and  the  next  have  browsed  in  the  artificially 
stimulated  pastures  of  Grafton  Street  and  Bond 
Street,  and  with  as  much  delight  in  one  as  in  the 
other. 

I  cannot  say  that  "I  was*  broke'  in  London  in  the 
fall  of  '89,"  for  the  simple  reason  that  I  was  not  in 


/m**J 


««,.  ^  <;;Z„ /^  '^  '  "^-^  ^'"*-^  ^^- 

FACSIMILE  OF  A   PAGE  OF  HARDY'S   "  FAB  FROM  THE  MADDING 
CROWD,"    MUCH  REDUCED  IN  SIZE 


BKRNAKI)  (^TAIUK  II 

"The  extensive  literature  of  catalogues  is  iimbablx  lirtlc  kimwii  to  nio^t  nailcis.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  claim  a  thoroui:h  acquaiiuaiiec  with  ir  Imt  I  kmiw  the  luxury  ut  read- 
ing goofl  <'atalogues  and  such  are  tliosc  of  IJeriiard  (^uaritch."  —  (ii.i\  i;i:  Wemiki.l 
Holmes. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  15 

London  that  year;  but  I  am  never  long  in  London 
without  finding  myself  as  light  in  heart  and  pocket  as 
Eugene  Field  —  the  result  of  yielding  to  the  same 
temptations. 

I  knew  the  elder  Quaritch  well,  and  over  a  cup  of 
tea  one  winter  afternoon  years  ago,  in  a  cold,  dingy 
little  room  filled  with  priceless  volumes  in  the  old 
shop  in  Piccadilly,  he  confided  to  me  his  fears  for 
his  son  Alfred.  This  remarkable  old  man,  who  has 
well  been  called  the  Napoleon  of  booksellers,  was  cer- 
tain that  Alfred  w^ould  never  be  able  to  carry  on  the 
business  when  he  was  gone.  "He  has  no  interest  in 
books,  he  is  not  willing  to  work  hard  as  he  will  have 
to,  to  maintain  the  standing  I  have  secured  as  the 
greatest  bookseller  in  the  world."  Quaritch  was  very 
proud,  and  justly,  of  his  eminence. 

How  little  the  old  man  knew  that  this  son,  when 
the  time  came,  would  step  into  his  father's  shoes  and 
stretch  them.  Alfred,  when  he  inherited  the  business, 
assumed  his  father's  first  name  and  showed  all  his  fa- 
ther's enthusiasm  and  shrewdness.  He  probably  sur- 
prised himself,  as  he  surprised  the  world,  by  adding 
lustre  to  the  name  of  Bernard  Quaritch,  so  that,  when 
he  died,  the  newspapers  of  the  English-speaking  world 
gave  the  details  of  his  life  and  death  as  matters  of 
general  interest. 

The  book-lovers'  happy  hunting  ground  is  the 
Charing  Cross  Road.  It  is  a  dirty  and  sordid  street, 
too  new  to  be  picturesque;  but  almost  every  other 
shop  on  both  sides  of  the  street  is  a  bookshop,  and  the 


16        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

patient  man  is  frequently  rewarded  by  a  find  of  pecu- 
liar interest. 

One  day,  a  few  years  ago,  I  picked  up  two  square 
folio  volumes  of  manuscript  bound  in  old,  soft  mo- 
rocco, grown  shabby  from  knocking  about.  The  title 
was  "Lyford  Redivivus,  or  A  Grandame's  Garrulity." 


^r^Mdi^U^i^ 


or 

Examination  showed  me  that  it  was  a  sort  of  dic- 
tionary of  proper  names.  In  one  volume  there  were 
countless  changes  and  erasures;  the  other  was  evi- 
dently a  fair  copy.  Although  there  was  no  name  in 
either  volume  to  suggest  the  author,  it  needed  no 
second  glance  to  see  that  both  were  written  in  the 
clear,  bold  hand  of  Mrs.  Piozzi.  The  price  was  but 
trifling,  and  I  promptly  paid  it  and  carried  the  vol- 
umes home.  Some  months  later,  I  was  reading  a 
little  volume,  "Piozziana,"  by  Edward  Mangin, — 
the  first  book  about  Mrs.  Thrale-Piozzi,  —  when,  to 
my  surprise,  my  eye  met  the  following:  — 


—    ^ 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  17 

Early  in  the  year  1815,  I  called  on  her  [Mrs.  Piozzi] 
then  resident  in  Bath,  to  examine  a  manuscript  which  she 
informed  me  she  was  preparing  for  the  press.  After  a  short 
conversation,  we  sat  down  to  a  table  on  which  lay  two 
manuscript  volumes,  one  of  them,  the  fair  copy  of  her 
work,  in  her  own  incomparably  fine  hand-writing.  The 
title  was  "Lyford  Redivivus";  the  idea  being  taken  from 
a  diminutive  old  volume,  printed  in  1657,  and  profess- 
ing to  be  an  alphabetical  account  of  the  names  of  men  and 
women,  and  their  derivations.  Her  work  was  somewhat 
on  this  plan:  the  Christian  or  first  name  given.  Charity, 
for  instance,  followed  by  its  etymology;  anecdotes  of  the 
eminent  or  obscure,  who  have  borne  the  appellation;  ap- 
plicable epigrams,  biographical  sketches,  short  poetical 
illustrations,  &c. 

I  read  over  twelve  or  fourteen  articles  and  found  them 
exceedingly  interesting;  abounding  in  spirit,  and  novelty; 
and  all  supported  by  quotations  in  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin, 
Italian,  French,  Celtic,  and  Saxon.  There  was  a  learned 
air  over  all,  and  in  every  page,  much  information,  ably 
compressed,  and  forming  what  I  should  have  supposed, 
an  excellent  popular  volume.  She  was  now  seventy-five; 
and  I  naturally  complimented  her,  not  only  on  the  work  in 
question,  but  on  the  amazing  beauty  and  variety  of  her 
hand-writing.  She  seemed  gratified  and  desired  me  to 
mention  the  MS.  to  some  London  publisher.  This  I  after- 
wards did,  and  sent  the  work  to  one  alike  distinguished 
for  discernment  and  liberality,  but  with  whom  we  could 
not  come  to  an  agreement.  I  have  heard  no  more  of  "Ly- 
ford  Redivivus"  since,  and  know  not  in  whose  hands  the 
MS.  may  now  be. 

A  moment  later  it  was  in  mine,  and  I  was  examin- 
ing it  with  renewed  interest. 

My  secret  is  out.  I  collect,  as  I  can,  human-interest 
books  —  books  with  a  'provenance,  as  they  are  called; 


18       AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

but  as  I  object  to  foreign  words,  I  once  asked  a  Brj^n 
Mawr  professor,  Dr.  Holbrook,  to  give  me  an  English 
equivalent.  "I  should  have  to  make  one,"  he  said. 
"You  know  the  word  whereabouts,  I  suppose."  I  ad- 
mitted that  I  did.  "How  would  whenceabouts  do?"" 
I  thought  it  good. 

In  recent  years,  presentation,  or  association,  books 
have  become  the  rage,  and  the  reason  is  plain.  Every 
one  is  unique,  though  some  are  uniquer  than  others. 
My  advice  to  any  one  who  may  be  tempted  by  some 
volume  with  an  inscription  of  the  author  on  its  fly- 
leaf or  title-page  is,  "Yield  with  coy  submission"  — 
and  at  once.  While  such  books  make  frightful  inroads 
on  one's  bank  account,  I  have  regretted  only  my 
economies,  never  my  extravagances. 

I  was  glancing  the  other  day  over  Arnold's  "Record 
of  Books  and  Letters."  He  paid  in  1895  seventy-one 
dollars  for  a  presentation  Keats's  "Poems,"  1817,  and 
sold  it  at  auction  in  1901  for  five  hundred.^  A  few 
years  later  I  was  offered  a  presentation  copy  of  the 
work,  with  an  inscription  to  Keats's  intimate  friends, 
Charles  and  Mary  Cowden  Clarke,  for  a  thousand 
dollars,  and  while  I  was  doing  some  preliminary 
financing  the  book  disappeared,  and  forever;  and  I 
have  never  ceased  regretting  that  the  dedication  copy 
of  Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson,"  to  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds,  passed   into   the  collection   of  my   lamented 

*  See  infra,  chapter  in,  p.  104,  where  the  further  adventures  of 
this  book  are  related,  and  where  its  price  at  the  Hagen  sale.  May  14, 
1918,  becomes  $1950,  with  A.  E.  N.  as  the  bidder-up. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  19 

friend,  Harry  Widener,  rather  than  into  my  own.  "I 
shall  not  pass  this  way  again"  seems  written  in  these 
volumes. 

But  my  record  is  not  all  of  defeats.  The  "whenee- 
abouts"  of  my  presentation  "Vanity  Fair"  is  not 
without  interest  —  its  story  is  told  in  Wilson's 
"Thackeray  in  the  United  States." 

The  great  man  took  particular  delight  in  schoolboys. 
When,  during  his  lecturing  tour,  he  visited  Philadelphia, 
he  presented  one  of  these  boys  with  a  five-dollar  gold- 
piece.  The  boy's  mother  objected  to  his  pocketing  the 
coin,  and  Thackeray  vainly  endeavored  to  convince  her 
that  this  species  of  beneficence  was  a  thing  of  course  in 
England.  After  a  discussion  the  coin  was  returned,  but 
three  months  later  the  lad  was  made  happy  by  the  receipt 
of  a  copy  of  "  Vanity  Fair,"  across  the  title-page  of  which 
he  saw  written,  in  a  curiously  small  and  delicate  hand, 
his  name,  Henry  Reed,  with  W.  M.  Thackeray's  kind 
regards,  April,  1856. 

One  day,  some  years  ago,  while  strolling  through 
Piccadilly,  my  attention  was  attracted  by  a  news- 
paper clipping  posted  on  the  window^  of  a  bookshop, 
which  called  attention  to  a  holograph  volume  of 
Johnson-Dodd  letters  on  exhibition  within.  I  spent 
several  hours  in  careful  examination  of  it,  and,  al- 
though the  price  asked  was  not  inconsiderable,  it  was 
not  high  in  view  of  the  unusual  interest  of  the  volume. 
I  felt  that  I  must  own  it. 

When  I  am  going  to  be  extravagant  I  always  like 
the  encouragement  of  my  wife,  and  I  usually  get  it. 
I  determined  to  talk  over  with  her  my  proposed  pur- 


«0        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

chase.  Her  prophetic  instinct  in  this  instance  was 
against  it.  She  reminded  me  that  the  business  out- 
look was  not  good  when  we  left  home,  and  that  the 
reports  received  since  were  anything  but  encouraging. 
"That  amount  of  money,"  she  said,  "may  be  very 
useful  when  you  get  home."  The  advice  was  good; 
indeed,  her  arguments  were  so  unanswerable  that  I 
determined  not  to  discuss  it  further,  but  to  buy  it 
anyhow  and  say  nothing.  Early  the  next  morning  I 
went  back,  and  to  my  great  disappointment  found 
that  some  one  more  forehanded  than  I  had  secured 
the  treasure.  My  regrets  for  a  time  were  keen,  but 
on  my  return  to  this  country  I  found  myself  in  the 
height  of  the  1907  panic.  Securities  seemed  almost 
worthless  and  actual  money  unobtainable;  then  I  con- 
gratulated my  wife  on  her  wisdom,  and  pointed  out 
what  a  fine  fellow  I  had  been  to  follow  her  advice. 

Six  months  later,  to  my  great  surprise,  the  collec- 
tion was  again  offered  me  by  a  bookseller  in  New 
York  at  a  price  just  fifty  per  cent  in  advance  of  the 
price  I  had  been  asked  for  it  in  London.  The  man  who 
showed  it  to  me  was  amazed  when  I  told  him  just 
when  he  had  bought  it  and  where,  and  the  price  he 
had  paid  for  it.  I  made  a  guess  that  it  was  ten  per 
cent  below  the  figure  at  which  it  had  been  offered  to 
me.  "I  am  prepared,"  I  said,  "to  pay  you  the  same 
price  I  was  originally  asked  for  it  in  London.  You 
have  doubtless  shown  it  to  many  of  your  customers 
and  have  not  found  them  as  foolish  in  their  enthusi- 
asm over  Johnson  as  I  am.    You  have  had  your 


PORTRAIT  OF  DR.  JOHXSON  BY  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS.     TAIXTED  ABOl  T  1770 
FOR  JOHNSON'S  STErDAUCJHTEK.  LICY  PORTER 


Enfjrared  bu   \y<its 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  21 

chance  to  make  a  big  profit;  why  not  accept  a  small 
one?"  There  was  some  discussion;  but  as  I  saw  my 
man  weakening,  my  firmness  increased,  and  it  finally 
ended  by  my  handing  him  a  check  and  carrying  off  the 
treasure. 

The  collection  consists  of  original  manuscripts  re- 
lating to  the  forgery  of  Dodd,  twelve  pieces  being 
in  Dr.  Johnson's  handwriting.  In  1778  Dr.  William 
Dodd,  the  "unfortunate"  clergyman,  as  he  came  to 
be  called,  was  condemned  to  death  for  forging  the 
name  of  his  pupil,  Lord  Chesterfield,  to  a  bond  for 
forty-two  hundred  pounds.  Through  their  common 
friend  Edmund  Allen,  Johnson  worked  hard  to  secure 
Dodd's  pardon,  writing  letters,  petitions,  and  ad- 
dresses, to  be  presented  by  Dodd,  in  his  own  or  his 
wife's  name,  to  the  King,  the  Queen,  and  other  im- 
portant persons,  Johnson  taking  every  care  to  con- 
ceal his  own  part  in  the  matter.  In  all  there  are 
thirty-two  manuscripts  relating  to  the  affair.  They 
were  evidently  used  by  Sir  John  Hawkins  in  his  "Life 
of  Johnson,"  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  Boswell,  al- 
though he  quotes  them  in  part,  ever  saw  the  collec- 
tion.^ 

Pearson,  from  his  shop  in  Pall  Mall  Place,  issues 
catalogues  which  for  size,  style,  and  beauty  are  un- 
excelled —  they  remind  one  more  of  publications  de 
luxe  than  of  a  bookseller's  catalogue.  It  is  almost 
vain  to  look  for  any  item  under  a  hundred  pounds, 
and  not  infrequently  they  run  to  several  thousand. 

^  See  iT^ra,  chapter  xi,  pp.  307jf. 


22        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

A  catalogue  now  on  my  writing  table  tells  me  of  a 
Caxton:  "Tully,  His  Treatises  of  Old  Age  and  Friend- 
ship," one  of  four  known  copies,  at  twenty -five  hun- 
dred pounds;  and  I'd  gladly  pay  it  did  my  means 
allow. 

From  Pearson  I  secured  my  holograph  prayer  of 
Dr.  Johnson,  of  which  Birkbeck  Hill  says:  "Having 
passed  into  the  cabinet  of  a  collector  it  remains  as 
yet  unpublished."  It  is  dated  Ashbourne,  Septem- 
ber 5,  1784  (Johnson  died  on  December  13  of  that 
year),  and  reads:  — 

Almighty  Lord  and  Merciful  Father,  to  Thee  be  thanks, 
and  praise  for  all  thy  mercies,  for  the  awakening  of  my 
mind,  the  continuance  of  my  life,  the  amendment  of  my 
health,  and  the  opportunity  now  granted  of  commemo- 
rating the  death  of  thy  Son  Jesus  Christ,  our  Mediator  and 
Redeemer.  Enable  me  O  Lord  to  repent  truly  of  my  sins 
—  enable  me  by  thy  Holy  Spirit  to  lead  hereafter  a  better 
life.  Strengthen  my  mind  against  useless  j>erplexities, 
teach  me  to  form  good  resolutions  and  assist  me  that  I  may 
bring  them  to  effect,  and  when  Thou  shalt  finally  call  me  to 
another  state,  receive  me  to  everlasting  happiness,  for  the 
sake  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Amen. 

Prayers  in  Dr.  Johnson's  hand  are  excessively  rare. 
He  wrote  a  large  number,  modeled  evidently  upon  the 
beautiful  Collects  —  prose  sonnets  —  of  the  Church 
of  England  Prayer  Book;  but  after  publication  by 
their  first  editor.  Dr.  George  Strahan,  in  1785,  most  of 
the  originals  were  deposited  in  the  Library  of  Pem- 
broke College,  Oxford;  hence  their  scarcity. 

From  Pearson,  too,  came  my  beautiful  uncut  copy 


i^Ww^Ni/w  AAv^   (Vvv^'wi^  o/duX-'yW  W4-WJ4 


«4        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

of  "A  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands  of  Scotland," 
with  a  receipt  for  one  hundred  pounds  in  Johnson's 
handwriting  on  account  of  the  copyright  of  the 
book,  and,  more  interesting  still,  a  brief  note  to 
Mrs.  Horneck  (the  mother  of  Goldsmith's  "Jessamy 
Bride"),  reading:  "Mr.  Johnson  sends  Mrs.  Horneck 
and  the  young  ladies  his  best  wishes  for  their  health 
and  pleasure  in  their  journey,  and  hopes  his  Wife 
[Johnson's  pet  name  for  the  young  lady]  will  keep 
him  in  her  mind.  Wednesday,  June  13."  The  date 
completes  the  story.  Forster  states  that  Goldsmith,  in 
company  with  the  Hornecks,  started  for  Paris  in  the 
middle  of  July,  1770.  This  was  the  dear  old  Doctol-'s 
good-bye  as  the  party  was  setting  out. 

To  spend  a  morning  with  Mr.  Sabin,  the  elder,  in 
his  shop  in  Bond  Street  is  a  delight  never  to  be  for- 
gotten. The  richest  and  rarest  volumes  are  spread 
out  before  you  as  unaffectedly  as  if  they  were  the  last 
best-sellers.  You  are  never  importuned  to  buy;  on 
the  contrary,  even  when  his  treasures  are  within 
your  reach,  it  is  difficult  to  get  him  to  part  with  them. 
One  item  which  you  particularly  want  is  a  part  of  a 
set  held  at  a  king's  ransom;  some  one  has  the  refusal 
of  another.  It  is  possible  to  do  business,  but  not 
easy. 

His  son,  Frank,  occasionally  takes  advantage  of 
his  father's  absence  to  part  with  a  volume  or  two. 
He  admits  the  necessity  of  selling  a  book  sometimes 
in  order  that  he  may  buy  another.  This,  I  take  it, 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  he  consented  to  part  with  a 


L  THE 


WORKS 

[  Of  that 

i        Famous  Englifh 

POET, 

Mr.  Edmond  Spenfer. 

[  The  FAERY  QUEEN, 
Vr.  \  ThcSHEPHERDS  Calrndar, 

!    TheHlSTORYof  lRKLA\D,&C. 


An  ACCOUNT    of  his    LIFE; 

With  othtr  mv  A  D  D  /  7  /  0  X  S 

j\,z.;'r  In}  :<■  in   /'  II  I  S  I . 


I.iccnllxl,'.'./.  ■■  ,  i^tli  i,',7S.     /u.^fr  /;/■'// 


I,  0  N  D  O.N: 
Printed, by  hh-zny  Hills  for  'Jofuithaii  /'./ir/v,  -^z  the 
Three  Rolens  in  Liidgnie-flrcct .     1^7  v- 


JOHN  KEATS'S  COPY  OF  SrKXSER?  WORKS 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  25 

copy  of  *'The  Works  of  that  Famous  English  Poet, 
Mr.  Edmond  Spenser"  —  the  fine  old  folio  of  1679, 
with  the  beautiful  title-page.  A  "name  on  title"  or- 
dinarily does  not  add  to  a  book's  value;  but  when 
that  name  is  "John  Keats"  in  the  poet's  hand,  and 
in  addition,  "Severn's  gift,  1818,"  one  is  justified  in 
feeling  elated. 

John  Keats !  who  in  the  realm  of  poetry  stands  next 
to  the  great  Elizabethans.  It  was  Spenser's  "  Fairy 
Queen"  which  first  fired  his  ambition  to  write  poetry, 
and  his  lines  in  imitation  of  Spenser  are  among  the 
first  he  wrote.  At  the  time  of  the  presentation  of  this 
volume,  Severn  had  recently  made  his  acquaintance, 
and  Keats  and  his  friends  were  steeped  in  Elizabethan 
literature.  The  finest  edition  of  the  works  of  Spenser 
procurable  was  no  doubt  selected  by  Severn  as  a  gift 
more  likely  than  any  other  to  be  appreciated  by  the 
poet. 

Remember  that  books  from  Keats's  library,  which 

was  comparatively  a  small  one,  are  at  the  present 

time  practically  non-existent;  that  among  them  there 

could  hardly  have  been  one  with  a  more  interesting 

association  than  this  volume  of  Spenser.  Remember 

too  that  Keats's  poem,  — 

Sweet  are  the  pleasures  that  to  verse  belong, 
And  doubly  sweet  a  brotherhood  in  song,  — 

was  addressed  to  my  great-great-uncle,  George  Felton 
Mathew;  and  let  me  refer  to  the  fact  that  on  my  first 
visit  to  England  I  had  spent  several  days  with  his 
sister,  who  as  a  young  girl  had  known  Keats  well, 


26       AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  it  will  be  realized  that  the  possession  of  this 
treasure  made  my  heart  thump. 

Stimulated  and  encouraged  by  this  purchase,  I 
successfully  angled  for  one  of  the  rarest  items  of  the 
recent  Browning  sale,  the  portrait  of  Tennyson  read- 
ing "Maud,"  a  drawing  in  pen  and  ink  by  Rossetti, 
with  a  signed  inscription  on  the  drawing  in  the  artist's 
handwriting :  — 

I  hate  the  dreadful  hollow  behind  the  little  wood. 

Browning's  inscription  is  as  follows:  — 

Tennyson  read  his  p)oem  of  Maud  to  E.B.B.,  R.B.,  Ara- 
bel  and  Rossetti,  on  the  evening  of  Thursday,  Septr.  27, 
1855,  at  13  Dorset  St.,  Manchester  Square.  Rossetti  made 
this  sketch  of  Tennyson  as  he  sat  reading  to  E.B.B.,  who 
occupied  the  other  end  of  the  sofa. 

R.B.  March  6,  '74. 
19  Warwick  Crescent. 

W.  M.  Rossetti  and  Miss  Browning  were  also 
present  on  this  famous  evening,  which  is  vivaciously 
described  by  Mrs.  Browning  in  an  autograph  letter  to 
Mrs.  Martin  inserted  in  the  album. 

One  of  the  pleasantest  things  which  has  happened  to  us 
here  is  the  coming  down  on  us  of  the  Laureate,  who,  being 
in  London  for  three  or  four  days  from  the  Isle  of  "Wight, 
spent  two  of  them  with  us,  dined  with  us,  smoked  with  us, 
opened  his  heart  to  us  (and  the  second  bottle  of  port),  and 
ended  by  reading  "Maud"  through  from  end  to  end,  and 
going  away  at  half-past  two  in  the  morning.  If  I  had  had 
a  heart  to  spare,  certainly  he  would  have  won  mine.  He  is 
captivating  with  his  frankness,  confidingness,  and  unex- 
ampled naivete!  Think  of  his  stopping  in  "Maud"  every 


PORTRAIT  OF  TENNYSON.  READINli^  'MAUD"  TO  ROBERT 
AND  MRS.  BROWNIN(;.  HV  ROSSETTI 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  27 

now  and  then  — "There's  a  wonderful  touch!  That's 
very  tender.  How  beautiful  that  is! "  Yes,  and  it  was  won- 
derful, tender,  beautiful,  and  he  read  exquisitely  in  a  voice 
like  an  organ,  rather  music  than  speech. 

Thus  are  linked  indissolubly  together  the  great 
Victorians:  Browning,  Tennyson,  Rossetti,  and  Mrs. 
Browning.  It  would  be  difficult  to  procure  a  more  in- 
teresting memento. 

At  27  New  Oxford  Street,  West,  is  a  narrow,  dingy 
little  shop,  which  you  would  never  take  to  be  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  bookshops  in  London  —  Spen- 
cer's. How  he  does  it,  where  he  gets  them,  is  his  busi- 
ness, and  an  inquiry  he  answers  only  with  a  smile; 
but  the  fact  is,  there  they  are  —  just  the  books  you 
have  been  looking  for,  presentation  copies  and  others, 
in  cloth  and  bound.  Spencer  owes  it  to  book-collec- 
tors to  issue  catalogues.  They  would  make  delight- 
ful reading.  He  has  always  promised  to  do  it,  but 
he,  as  well  as  we,  knows  that  he  never  will. 

But  he  is  kind  in  another  way,  if  kindness  it  is:  he 
leaves  you  alone  for  hours  in  that  wonderful  second- 
story  room,  subjected  to  temptation  almost  too  great 
to  be  resisted.  Autograph  letters,  first  drafts  of  well- 
known  poems,  rare  volumes  filled  w^ith  corrections 
and  notes  in  the  hand  of  the  author,  are  scattered 
about;  occasionally,  such  an  invaluable  item  as  the 
complete  manuscript  of  "The  Cricket  on  the  Hearth." 

It  was  from  the  table  in  this  room  that  I  picked  up 
one  day  a  rough  folder  of  cardboard  tied  with  red 
tape  and  labeled  "Lamb."  Opening  it,  I  found  a  letter 


28       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

from  Lamb  to  Taylor  &  Hessey,  "acknowledging 
with  thanks  receit  of  thirty-two  pounds"  for  the 
copyright  of  **Elias  (Alas)  of  last  year,"  signed  and 
dated,  June  9,  1824.  I  felt  that  it  would  look  well  in 
my  presentation  "Elia,"  in  boards,  uncut,  and  was 
not  mistaken. 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Dobell  I  owe  to  a  para- 
graph that  I  read  many  years  ago  in  Labouchere's 
"Truth."   One  day  this  caught  my  eye:  — 

From  the  catalogue  of  a  West  End  Bookseller  I  note 
this:  "Garrick,  David.  'Love  in  the  Suds.  A  Town 
Eclogue,'  first  edition.  1772.  Very  rare.  5  guineas."  The 
next  post  brought  me  a  catalogue  from  Bertram  Dobell, 
the  well-known  bookseller  in  the  Charing  Cross  Road. 
There  I  read,  "Garrick,  David.  'Love  in  the  Suds.  A 
Town  Eclogue,'  first  edition,  1772,  boards,  18  pence." 
The  purchaser  of  the  former  might  do  well  to  average  by 
acquiring  Mr.  Dobell's  copy. 

Old  Dobell  is  in  a  class  by  himself  —  scholar,  anti- 
quarian, poet,  and  bookseller.^  He  is  just  the  type  one 
would  expect  to  find  in  a  shop  on  the  floor  of  which 
books  are  stacked  in  piles  four  or  five  feet  high,  leav- 
ing narrow  tortuous  paths  through  which  one  treads 
one's  way  with  great  drifts  of  books  on  either  side. 
To  reach  the  shelves  is  practically  impossible,  yet  out 
of  this  confusion  I  have  picked  many  a  rare  item. 

^  I  had  a  letter  from  Mr.  Dobell  early  in  the  war,  telling  me  that 
business  was  very  bad  in  his  line,  and  that  he  had  taken  to  writing 
bad  war-p)oems,  which,  he  said,  was  a  harmless  pastime  for  a  man  too 
old  to  fight.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  writing  of  bad  p>oetry  is  a  harm- 
less pastime,  and  I  was  just  about  to  write  and  tell  him  so,  when  I  read 
in  the  Athetumim  that  he  had  passed  away  quite  suddenly. 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  29 

Don't  be  discouraged  if,  on  your  asking  for  a  certain 
volume,  Mr.  Dobell  gently  replies,  *'No,  sorry."  That 
means  simply  that  he  cannot  put  his  mental  eye  on  it 
at  the  moment.  It,  or  something  as  interesting,  will 
come  along.  Don't  hurry;  and  let  me  observe  that 
the  prices  of  this  eighteenth-century  bookshop  are  of 
the  period. 

I  once  sought,  for  years,  a  little  book  of  no  particu- 
lar value;  but  I  wanted  it  to  complete  a  set.  I  had 
about  given  up  all  hope  of  securing  a  copy  when  I 
finally  found  it  in  a  fashionable  shop  on  Piccadilly.  It 
was  marked  five  guineas,  an  awful  price;  but  I  paid  it 
and  put  the  volume  in  my  pocket.  That  very  day  I 
stumbled  across  a  copy  in  a  better  condition  at  Do- 
bell's,  marked  two  and  six.  I  bethought  me  of  Labby's 
advice  and  "averaged." 

From  Dobell  came  Wordsworth's  copy  of  "En- 
dymion";  likewise  a  first  edition  of  the  old-fashioned 
love-story,  "Henrietta  Temple,"  by  Disraeli,  in- 
scribed, "To  William  Beckford  with  the  author's  com- 
pliments," with  many  pages  of  useless  notes  in  Beck- 
ford's  hand;  he  seems  to  have  read  the  volumes  with 
unnecessary  care.  Nor  should  I  forget  a  beautiful 
copy  of  Thomson's  "Seasons,"  presented  by  Byron 
"To  the  Hon'ble  Frances  Wedderburne  W^ebster," 
with  this  signed  impromptu:  — 

Go !  —  volume  of  the  Wintry  Blast, 
The  yellow  Autumn  and  the  virgin  Spring. 
Go !  —  ere  the  Summer's  zephyr  's  past 
And  lend  to  loveliness  thy  lovely  Wing. 


80        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

The  morning's  mail  of  a  busy  man,  marked  "per- 
sonal," takes  a  wide  scope,  ranging  all  the  way  from 
polite  requests  for  a  loan  to  brief  statements  that  *'a 
prompt  remittance  will  oblige";  but  at  the  bottom 
of  the  pile  are  the  welcome  catalogues  of  the  second- 
hand booksellers  —  for  books,  to  be  interesting,  must 
at  least  be  second-hand.  Indeed,  as  with  notes  offered 
for  discount,  the  greater  the  number  of  good  indorsers 
the  better.  In  books,  indorsements  frequently  take 
the  form  of  bookplates.  I  am  always  interested  in 
such  a  note  as  this:  "From  the  library  of  Charles  B. 
Foote,  with  his  bookplate." 

Auction  catalogues  come,  too.  These  also  must  be 
scanned,  but  they  lack  the  element  which  makes  the 
dealers*  catalogues  so  interesting  —  the  prices.  With 
prices  omitted,  book-auction  catalogues  are  too  stimu- 
lating. The  mind  at  once  begins  to  range.  Doubt 
takes  the  place  of  certainty. 

The  arrival  of  a  catalogue  from  the  Sign  of  the 
Caxton  Head,  Mr.  James  Tregaskis's  shop  in  High 
Holbom,  in  the  parish  of  St.-Giles's-in-the-Field,  al- 
ways suspends  business  in  my  oflSce  for  half  an  hour; 
and  while  I  glance  rapidly  through  its  pages  in  search 
of  nuggets,  I  paraphrase  a  line  out  of  Boswell,  that 
"  Jimmie  hath  a  very  pretty  wife."  Why  should  n't 
a  book  merchant  have  a  pretty  wife?  The  answer  is 
simple :  he  has,  nor  are  good-looking  wives  peculiar  to 
this  generation  of  booksellers. 

Tom  Davies,  it  will  be  remembered,  who,  in  the 
back  parlor  of  his  bookshop  in  Henrietta  Street, 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD 


31 


Covent  Garden,  first  introduced  Boswell  to  Johnson, 
had  a  wife  who,  we  are  told,  caused  the  great  Doctor 
to  interrupt  himself  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  at  the  point, 
"Lead  us  not  into  temptation,"  and  whisper  to 
her,  with  waggish  and 
gallant  good  humor, 
"You,  my  dear,  are 
the  cause  of  this."  Like 
causes  still  produce 
like  effects. 

From  Tregaskis  I 
secured  my  "  Memoirs 
of  George  Psalmana- 
zar,"  1764,  an  interest- 
ing book  in  itself;  but 
its  chief  value  is  the 
signature  and  note, 
"Given  to  H.  L. 
Thrale  by  Dr.  Sam 
Johnson,"  I  suppose 
about  1770.  Follow- 
ing Mrs.  Thrale's  usu- 
al practice,  there  are 
scattered  through  the 
volume  a  number  of 
notes  and  criticisms  in 
her  handwriting.  It 
was  Psalmanazar,  afterwards  discovered  to  be  a 
notorious  old  scamp,  whose  apparent  piety  so  im- 
pressed Dr.  Johnson  that  he  "sought"  his  company; 


DR.  JOHNSON'S  CHURCH,   ST.   CLEMENT 
DANES 

From  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  by 
Charles  G.  Osgood 


32        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  of  whom  he  said,  "Sir,  contradict  Psalmanazar ! 
I  should  as  soon  think  of  contradicting  a  Bishop." 

Side  by  side  with  this  volume  on  my  shelves  stands 
the  "  Historical  and  Geographical  Description  of  For- 
mosa," a  work  of  sheer  imagination  if  ever  there  was 
one. 

My  "Haunch  of  Venison,"  1776,  in  wrappers,  un- 
cut, with  the  rare  portrait  of  Goldsmith  drawn  by 
Bunbury  (he  married  Goldsmith's  Little  Comedy,  it 
will  be  remembered),  also  came  from  him,  as  did  my 
"London,  A  poem  in  imitation  of  the  third  Satire  of 
Juvenal,"  and  the  first  edition  of  the  first  book  on 
London,  Stow's  "Survay,"  1598. 

From  another  source  came  one  of  the  last  books  on 
London,  "Our  House."  This  book,  delightful  in  itself, 
is  especially  interesting  to  me  by  reason  of  the  per- 
sonal inscription  of  its  charming  and  witty  writer: 
"To  A.E.N. ,  a  welcome  visitor  to  'Our  House,'  from 
Elizabeth  Robins  Pennell." 

Continuing  along  Holborn  citywards,  one  comes  to 
(and  usually  passes)  the  Great  Turnstile,  a  narrow 


BOOK-COLLECTING  ABROAD  33 

court  leading  into  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  Here  is  an- 
other bookshop  that  I  frequent, — HoUings's,  —  not 
for  the  rarest  things,  but  for  the  choice  little  bits 
which  seem  almost  commonplace  when  you  are  buy- 
ing them,  and  give  so  much  pleasure  when  you  get 
them  safely  on  your  shelves  at  home.  I  never  spend 
a  few  hours  with  Mr.  Redway,  the  manager,  without 
thinking  of  the  saying  of  one  of  our  most  delightful 
essayists,  Augustine  Birrell,  who,  to  our  loss,  seems 
to  have  forsaken  literature  for  politics:  "Second-hand 
booksellers  are  a  race  of  men  for  whom  I  have  the 
greatest  respect;  .  .  .  their  catalogues  are  the  true 
textbooks  of  literature." 

One  sometimes  has  the  pleasure  of  running  across 
some  reference  in  a  catalogue  to  a  book  of  which  one 
has  a  better  or  more  interesting  copy  at  half  the  price. 
For  example,  I  saw  quoted  in  a  catalogue  the  other 
day  at  eighty  pounds  a  "Set  of  the  Life  of  the  Prince 
Consort,  in  five  volumes,  with  an  inscription  in  each 
volume  in  the  autograph  of  Her  Majesty  Queen  Vic- 
toria. The  first  volume  being  published  before  Her 
Majesty  was  proclaimed  Empress  of  India,  she  signed 
as  Queen;  the  other  four  volumes  Her  Majesty  signed 
as  Queen-Empress." 

In  my  collection  there  are  seven  volumes,  the  five 
mentioned  above  and  two  additional  volumes,  the 
"Speeches  and  Addresses"  and  the  "Biography  of 
the  Prince  Consort."  My  copies  also  are  signed,  but 
note:  the  volume  of  "Speeches  and  Addresses"  has 
this  intensely  personal  inscription :  — 


34        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

To  Major  General,  the  Hon.  A.  Gordon,  in  recollection 
of  his  great,  &  good  master  from  the  beloved  Prince's 
broken  hearted  Widow  Victoria  R. 

Osborne 

Jan :  12.  1863. 

The  "Biography"  has  this:  — 

To  Major  General,  The  Hon.  Alexander  Gordon,  C.B. 
in  recollection  of  his  dear  Master  from  the  great  Prince's 
affectionate  and  sorrowing  Widow,  Victoria  R. 

AprU,  1867. 

Volume  one  of  the  *'Life"  is  inscribed :  — 

To  Lieutenant  General,  The  Hon.  Sir  Alexander  Gor- 
don, K.C.B.,  in  recollection  of  his  dear  Master,  from 
January  IS75.  VICTORIA  R. 

Volume  two:  — 

To  Lieut.  General,  The  Hon.  Sir  Alexander  Hamilton 
Gordon,  K.C.B.,  from  Victoria  R. 

Dec.  1876. 

Volume  three:  — 

To  General,  The  Hon.  Sir  Alex.  H.  Gordon,  K.C.B., 
from  Victoria  R.I. 

Dec.  1877. 

The  inscriptions  in  the  last  three  volumes  are 
identical,  except  for  the  dates.  All  are  written  in  the 
large,  flowing  hand  with  which  we  are  familiar,  and 
indicate  a  declining  scale  of  grief.  Time  heals  all 
wounds,  and  as  these  volumes  appear  at  intervals, 
grief  is  finally  assuaged  and  Majesty  asserts  itself. 


^ — > 


y'^^*-**-*-*^^-^^ 


—  yy 


^/^'  /-f.  AP^>S. 


II 

BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  wrote  of  the  amenities  of 
book-collecting  in  London,  of  my  adventures  in  the 
shops  of  Bond  Street  and  Piccadilly,  of  Holbom  and 
the  Strand  —  almost  as  though  this  paradise  of  the 
book-collector  were  his  only  happy  hunting-ground. 
But  all  the  good  hunting  is  not  found  in  London: 
New  York  has  a  number  of  attractive  shops,  Phila- 
delphia at  least  two,  while  there  are  several  in  Chicago 
and  in  unexpected  places  in  the  West. 

Where  in  all  the  world  will  you  find  so  free  a  buyer, 
always  ready  to  take  a  chance  to  turn  a  volume  at  a 
profit,  as  George  D.  Smith.''  He  holds  the  record  for 
having  paid  the  highest  price  ever  paid  for  a  book 
at  auction:  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  a  copy  of  the 
Gutenberg  Bible,  purchased  for  Mr.  Henry  E.  Hunt- 
ington at  the  Hoe  sale;  and  not  only  did  he  pay  the 
highest  price  —  he  also  bought  more  than  any  other 
purchaser  of  the  fine  books  disposed  of  at  that  sale. 

I  have  heard  Smith's  rivals  complain  that  he  is  not 
a  bookseller  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  —  that  he 
buys  without  discretion  and  without  exact  knowledge. 
Such  criticism,  I  take  it,  is  simply  the  natural  result 
of  jealousy.  George  D.  Smith  has  sold  more  fine  books 
than  perhaps  any  two  of  his  rivals. 


GEORGE  I).  SMITH 

"G.  D.  S."  as  he  is  known  in  the  Xew  York  Auction  Rooms.  Like  '•  G.  B.  S."  of  London,  lie 
is  something  of  an  enigma.  AVhat  are  the  qualities  which  have  made  him,  as  he  undoubtedly  is, 
the  greatest  bookseller  in  the  world  ? 


From  a  phulograp/i  lij  ArnuhJ  denthe 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  37 

There  is  no  affectation  of  dignity  or  of  knowledge 
about  him,  and  it  is  well  that  there  is  not.  No  one 
knows  all  there  is  to  know  about  books;  a  man  might 
know  much  more  than  he  —  such  men  there  are  — 
and  yet  lack  the  qualities  which  have  enabled  him  to 
secure  and  retain  the  confidence  and  commissions  of 
his  patrons.  He  is  practically  the  main  support  of  the 
auction-rooms  in  this  country,  and  I  have  frequently 
seen  him  leave  a  sale  at  which  he  had  purchased  every 
important  book  that  came  up.  He  had  knowledge  and 
confidence  enough  for  that,  and  I  cannot  see  why  his 
frankness  and  lack  of  affectation  should  be  counted 
against  him.  It  takes  all  kinds  of  men  to  make  a 
world,  and  George  is  several  kinds  in  himself. 

Twenty -five  years  ago,  in  London,  early  in  my 
book-collecting  days,  I  came  across  a  bundle  of  dusty 
volumes  in  an  old  book-shop  in  the  Strand,  —  the 
shop  and  that  part  of  the  Strand  have  long  since  dis- 
appeared, —  and  bought  the  lot  for,  as  I  remember, 
two  guineas.  Subsequently,  upon  going  through  the 
contents  carefully,  I  found  that  I  had  acquired  what 
appeared  to  be  quite  a  valuable  little  parcel.  There 
were  the  following :  — 

"Tales  from  Shakespeare":  Baldwin   and  Cradock,  fifth 

edition,  1831. 
Lamb's  "Prose  Works":  3  volumes,  Moxon,  1836. 
"The  Letters  of  Charles  Lamb":  2  volumes,  Moxon,  1837; 

with  the  inscription,  "To  J.  P.  Collier,  Esq.  from  his 

friend  H.  C-  Robinson." 
Talf ourd's  "Final  Memorials  of  Charles  Lamb " :  2  volumes, 

Moxon,  1848. 


38        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

By  the  way,  the  last  was  Wordsworth's  copy,  with 
his  signature  on  the  title-page  of  each  volume;  and  I 
observed  for  the  first  time  that  the  book  was  dedi- 
cated to  him.  Loosely  inserted  in  several  of  the  vol- 
umes were  newspaper  clippings,  a  number  of  pages  of 
manuscript  in  John  Payne  Collier's  handwriting,  a 
part  of  a  letter  from  Mary  Lamb  addressed  to  Jane 
Collier,  his  mother,  and  in  several  of  the  volumes  were 
notes  in  Collier's  handwriting  referring  to  matters  in 
the  text:  as  where,  against  a  reference  to  Lamb's 
"Essay  on  Roast  Pig,"  Collier  says,  in  pencil,  '*My 
mother  sent  the  pig  to  Lamb."  Again,  where  Tal- 
fourd,  referring  to  an  evening  with  Lamb,  says,  "We 
mounted  to  the  top  story  and  were  soon  seated  beside 
a  cheerful  fire:  hot  water  and  its  better  adjuncts  were 
soon  before  us,"  Collier  writes,  "Both  Lamb  and  Tal- 
fourd  died  of  the  'Better  Adjuncts.'" 

There  was  a  large  number  of  such  pencil  notes.  The 
pages  of  manuscript  in  Collier's  heavy  and,  as  he  calls 
it,  "infirm'*  hand  begin:  — 

In  relation  to  C.  Lamb  and  Southey,  Mr.  Cosens  pos- 
sesses as  interesting  a  MS.  as  I  know.  It  is  bound  as  a  small 
quarto,  but  the  writing  of  Lamb,  and  chiefly  by  Southey 
is  p>ost  8vo.  They  seem  to  have  been  contributions  to  an 
"Annual  Anthology"  published  by  Cottle  of  Bristol. 

The  MS.  begins  with  an  "Advertisement"  in  the  hand- 
writing of  Southey,  and  it  is  followed  immediately  by  a 
poem  in  Lamb's  handwriting  headed  "Elegy  on  a  Quid  of 
Tobacco,"  in  ten  stanzas  rhiming  alternately  thus:  — 

It  lay  before  me  on  the  close  grazed  grass 
Beside  my  path,  an  old  tobacco  quid: 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  39 

And  shall  I  by  the  mute  adviser  pass 

Without  one  serious  thought?  now  Heaven  forbid!  * 

The  next  day,  Collier  copied  more  of  the  poem,  for 
on  another  sheet  he  remarks,  "As  my  hand  is  steadier 
to-day  I  have  copied  the  remaining  stanzas." 

On  still  another  sheet,  referring  to  the  Cosens  MS., 
Collier  writes :  — 

The  whole  consists  of  about  sixty  leaves  chiefly  in  the 
handwriting  of  Southey  and  it  contains  .  .  .  productions  by 
Lamb,  one  a  sort  of  jeu  d' esprit  called  "The  Rhedycinian 
Barbers"  on  the  hair-dressing  of  twelve  young  men  of 
Christ  Church  College,  and  the  other  headed,  "Dirge  for 
Him  Who  Shall  Deserve  It."  This  has  no  signature  but  the 
whole  is  in  Lamb's  clear  young  hand,  and  it  shows  very 
plainly  that  he  partook  not  only  of  the  poetical  but  of 
the  political  feeling  of  the  time. 

The  signatures  are  various,  Erthuryo,  Ryalto,  Walter, 
and  so  forth,  and  at  the  end  are  four  Love  Elegies  and  a 
serious  poem  by  Charles  Lamb,  entitled,  "Living  without 
God  in  the  World." 

How  many  of  these  were  printed  elsewhere,  or  in 
Cottle's  "Anthology,"  I  do  not  know.  I  would  willingly 
copy  more  did  not  my  hand  fail  me. 

J.  P.  C. 

Twenty  years  later,  in  New  York  one  day,  George 
D.  Smith  asked  me  if  I  would  care  to  buy  an  inter- 
esting volume  of  Southey  MSS.,  and  to  my  great 
surprise  handed  me  the  identical  little  quarto  which 

^  The  facsimile  is  from  the  original  manuscript  by  Charles  Lamb. 
First  published  in  1799  in  what  is  usually  referred  to  as  Cottle's  "An- 
nual Anthology."  The  p>oem  is  generally  attributed  to  Southey,  but 
it  sounds  like  Lamb,  who  liked  tobacco,  whereas  Southey  did  not. 
The  MS.,  in  ten  stanzas,  is  undoubtedly  in  Lamb's  handwriting. 


^k.  UieA/oit  ^\.f<t^  ^ka^  o^  M.  a<f^-*ty~^t:d/uj  y 

£  (bt^d^/^e*^^*^^  ^'trm    fdiU^i^    -f^yncvCc  iLrty^  / 

ffi^j^yO  i^   lu^  Cv^A  ^//fii.  ^Ax/L  -c^^^ 
Jji ^ ^ ti   '/k^t^fdyfPfyy^  'ms^7dLZ',-e>^'V  cmxX-  ^Tvitj/U, — 

^7V>n    -^^Az-  ^:?  /"^  >y  ^  .xJlH- ;  -i/C    0>Jd^f%rf  y  -4^  / 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  41 

Collier  had  many  years  before  found  so  interesting 
that  he  had  made  excerpts  from  it.  It  might  not 
have  made  such  instant  appeal  to  my  recollection  of 
my  purchase  in  London  had  it  not  been  for  an  inserted 
note,  almost  identical  with  the  one  on  the  loose  slip 
in  my  Lamb  volume,  obviously  in  Collier's  "infirm" 
hand,  repeating  briefly  what  he  had  said  on  the  loose 
sheets  in  my  volumes  at  home. 

Mr.  Cosens,  the  former  owner  of  the  manuscripts, 
had  added  a  note:  "In  1798  or  1799  Charles  Lamb 
contributed  to  the  '  Annual  Anthology '  which  a  Mr. 
Cottle,  a  bookseller  of  Bristol,  published  jointly  with 
Coleridge  and  Southey.  This  manuscript  is  partly  in 
the  handwriting  of  Southey  and  was  formerly  the 
property  of  Cottle  of  Bristol." 

Upon  investigation  I  ascertained  that  the  little 
volume  of  manuscript  verse  had  passed  from  Mr. 
Cosens's  possession  into  that  of  Augustin  Daly,  at 
whose  sale  it  had  been  catalogued  as  a  Southey  MS., 
with  small  reference  to  its  Lamb  interest.  Although 
the  price  was  high,  the  temptation  to  buy  was  too 
strong  to  be  resisted;  so  after  many  years  the  small 
quarto  of  original  poems  by  Lamb,  Southey,  and 
others,  and  Collier's  description  of  it,  stand  side  by 
side  in  my  library.  For  me  the  three  poems  by  Lamb 
outweigh  in  interest  and  value  all  others.  The  vol- 
ume is  labeled,  "Southey  Manuscripts,  a  long  time 
since  the  property  of  a  Mr.  Cottle  of  Bristol." 

The  most  scholarly  bookseller  in  this  country  to- 
day is  Dr.  Rosenbach  —  "  Rosy  "  as  we  who  know  him 


42        AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

well  call  him.  It  was  not  his  original  intention  to  deal 
in  rare  books,  but  to  become  a  professor  of  English, 
a  calling  for  which  few  have  a  finer  appreciation;  but 
mere  scholars  abound.  He  must  have  felt  that  we 
collectors  needed  some  one  to  guide  our  tastes  and 
deplete  our  bank  accounts.   In  both  he  is  unequaled. 

His  spacious  second-floor  room  in  Walnut  Street 
is  filled  with  the  rarest  volumes.  "Ask  and  it  shall 
be  given  you"  —  with  a  bill  at  the  end  of  the  month. 
It  is  a  delightful  place  to  spend  a  rainy  morning,  and 
you  are  certain  to  depart  a  wiser  if  a  poorer  man.  I 
once  spent  some  hours  with  the  doctor  in  company 
with  my  friend  Tinker  —  not  the  great  Tinker  who 
plays  ball  for  a  bank  president's  wage,  but  the  less 
famous  Tinker,  Professor  of  English  at  Yale.  We  had 
been  looking  at  Shakespeare  folios  and  quartos,  and 
Spenser's  and  Herrick's  and  Milton's  priceless  vol- 
umes of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
when,  looking  out  of  the  window.  Rosy  remarked, 
"There  goes  John  G.  Johnson."  "Oh!"  said  my 
friend,  "I  thought  you  were  going  to  say  John  Dry- 
den.  It  would  not  have  surprised  me  in  the  least." 

Don't  expect  ever  to  "discover"  anything  at 
Rosenbach's,  except  how  ignorant  you  are.  Rosy 
does  all  the  discovering  himself,  as  when,  a  few  years 
ago,  he  found  in  a  volume  of  old  pamphlets  a  copy  of 
the  first  edition  of  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  "Prologue 
Spoken  at  the  Opening  of  the  Theatre  in  Drury  Lane." 
It  will  be  rememberd  that  this  Prologue  contains 
several  of  the  Doctor's  most  famous  lines:  criticisms 


DR.  A.  S.  W.  KOSKXBACH 

Photograph  by  Arii'iM  G'enthe 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  43 

of  the  stage,  as  true  to-day  as  when  they  were  uttered; 
as  where  he  says,  — 

The  Drama's  Laws,  the  Drama's  patrons  give, 
For  we  that  live  to  please,  must  please  to  Uve. 

It  has  also  the  line  in  which,  speaking  of  Shake- 
speare, he  says,  "And  panting  Time  toil'd  after  him 
in  vain."  Garrick  having  criticized  this  line,  Johnson 
remarked,  "  Sir,  Garrick  is  a  prosaical  rogue.  The  next 
time  I  write  I  will  make  both  Time  and  Space  pant." 

The  discovery  by  Dr.  Rosenbach  of  this  Prologue 
shows  that  the  days  of  romance  in  book-hunting  are 
not  over.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  British  Museum. 
So  far  as  we  know,  it  is  the  only  copy  in  existence. 
Rosy  has  declined  to  sell  it,  though  tempting  offers 
have  been  made,  for  he  is  a  booklover  as  well  as  a 
bookseller. 

That  he  is  a  rare  judge  of  human  nature,  too,  is 
evidenced  by  a  little  card  over  his  desk  on  which  is 
printed  the  text,  — 

"It  is  naught,  it  is  naught,  saith  the  buyer;  but 
when  he  hath  gone  his  way  then  he  boasteth."  — 
Proverbs  xx.  14. 

That  is  exactly  what  I  did  when  I  secured  from  him 
my  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  the  first  edition  in  two  vol- 
umes, with  the  third,  which  may  not  be  Defoe's.  It 
lacks  one  "point"  perhaps:  the  word  "apply,"  the 
last  word  on  page  1  of  the  preface,  is  correctly  spelled, 
not  spelled  "apyly,"  as  in  some  copies  I  have  seen. 
The  matter,  I  believe,  is  not  clear.  The  type  may 
have  been  correctly  set  at  first  and  have  become  cor- 


44,       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

rupted  in  process  of  printing,  or  a  few  copies  may 
have  been  so  printed  before  the  error,  being  noted, 
was  corrected.^  After  page  304,  of  Volume  1,  the  paper 
is  of  thinner  and  poorer  quahty  than  in  the  pages  pre- 
ceding it.  The  three  volumes  are  clean,  the  binding 
contemporary  calf,  the  folding  maps  immaculate,  and 
the  first  two  volumes  were  once  the  property  of  "Mr. 
William  Congreve."  Altogether  it  is  a  book  of  which 
this  collector  "boasteth." 

For  some  unexplained  reason  I  have  never  been 
able  to  buy  as  many  books  from  AValter  Hill  of  Chi- 
cago as  I  should  like.  He  is  one  of  the  most  amiable 
and  reliable  men  in  the  business.  His  catalogues  issued 
from  time  to  time  are  delightful.  He  once  put  me 
under  an  obligation  which  I  have  not  yet  repaid  and 
which  I  want  to  record. 

Several  years  ago  I  met  him  in  the  streets  of  Phila- 
delphia and  said  to  him,  "Hello!  what  are  you  doing 
here.'^  Are  you  buying  or  selling?'* 

"Both,"  said  he;  "I  bought  some  nice  books  only 
a  few  minutes  ago  at  Sessler's." 

"Don't  tell  me,"  I  cried,  "that  'Oliver  Twist,'  that 
presentation  copy  to  Macready,  was  among  them.'* 

"It  was,"  said  he;  "why,  did  you  want  it?" 

"Want  it!"  said  I;  "I  have  just  been  waiting  for 
my  bank  account  to  recover  from  a  capital  operation, 
to  buy  it." 

»  See  Professor  Trent's  remarks  on  this  "point,"  in  chapter  in, 
p.  100. 


THE 

LIFE 

AND 

Strange   Surprizing 

ADVENTURES 

O  F 

ROBINSON  CRUSOE, 

Of  TORICy  Mariner; 

Who  lived  Eight  and  Twenty  Years, 
all  alone  in  an  un-iahabited  Ifland  on  the 
Coaft  of  America,  near  the  Mouth  of 
the  Great  River  of  Oroonociue: 

Having  been  cafl  on  Shore  by  Shipwreek,  where- 
in ail  the  Men  perifhed  but  himfelf. 

WITH 

An  Account  how  he  was  at  laft  as  flrangely  deli- 
ver'dbyPYRATES. 

fVyhtcn  by  Himfelf. 


LONDON', 

Printed  for  W.  T  ay  l  o  r  at  the  ShipxTxFater-NoJl&r- 
Ho^    MDCCXIX. 


46        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

'*A11  right,"  said  he,  *'I*1I  turn  it  over  at  just  what 
I  paid  for  it,  and  you  can  send  me  your  check  when 
you  are  ready.'* 

I  was  mean  enough  to  accept  his  offer,  and  the 
book  is  to-day  worth  at  least  twice  what  I  paid. 

Yet,  come  to  think  of  it,  several  nice  volumes, 
"collated  and  perfect,"  came  from  him.  There  is  my 
"Vicar,"  not  the  first  edition,  with  the  misprints  in 
volume  2,  page  159,  paged  165;  and  page  95,  "  Waekc- 
field"  for  "Wakefield,"  —  that  came  from  North,  — 
but  the  one  with  Rowlandson  plates.  And  "Eve- 
lina," embellished  vnth  engravings^  and  wretchedly 
printed  on  vile  paper;  and  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer," 
with  all  the  errors  just  as  they  should  be  —  a  printer's 
carnival ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  there  are  many  more. 

Sessler  has  some  unexpectedly  fine  things  from 
time  to  time.  He  goes  abroad  every  year  with  his 
pocket  full  of  money,  and  comes  back  with  a  lot  of 
things  that  quickly  empty  ours.  Dickens  is  one  of  his 
specialties,  and  from  him  I  have  secured  at  least  five 
of  the  twenty-one  presentation  Dickenses  that  I  boast 
of.  A  few  years  ago  quite  a  number  came  on  the  mar- 
ket at  prices  which  to-day  seem  very  low.  In  my  last 
book-hunting  experience  in  London  I  saw  only  one 
presentation  Dickens;  but  as  the  price  was  about 
three  times  what  I  had  accustomed  myself  to  pay 
Sessler,  I  let  it  pass. 

Sessler  studies  his  customer's  weaknesses  —  that 's 
where  his  strength  lies.  When  I  came  back  from  Eu- 
rope some  years  ago,  I  discovered  that  he  had  bought 


OLIVER  TWT 


BY 


CHARLES     DICKENS. 


AUTHOR   OP   "  THE  PICKWICK    PAPEES." 


IN   THREE  VOLUMES. 


VOL.  L 


LONDON: 

RICHARD  BENTLEY,  NEW  BURLINGTON  STREET. 

1838. 


48        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

for  me,  in  my  absence,  at  the  Lambert  sale,  one  item 
which  he  knew  I  could  not  resist.  It  was  a  little 
pen-and-ink  drawing  by  Thackeray,  the  first  sketch, 
afterwards  more  fully  elaborated,  illustrating  "Van- 
ity Fair,"  where,  at  the  end  of  the  first  chapter,  the 
immortal  Becky,  driving  away  from  Miss  Pinker- 
ton's  school,  throws  Dr.  Johnson's  "Dixonary"  out 
of  the  window  of  the  carriage  as  it  drives  off. 

I  think  that  all  who  knew  him  will  agree  with  me 
that  Luther  S.  Livingston  was  too  much  of  a  gentle- 
man, too  much  of  a  scholar,  —  perhaps  I  should  add, 
too  much  of  an  invalid,  —  to  take  high  rank  as  a 
bookseller. 

His  knowledge  was  profound.  He  was  an  appre- 
ciative bibliographer,  witness  the  work  he  did  on 
Lamb  for  Mr.  J.  A.  Spoor  of  Chicago;  but  I  always 
felt  a  trifle  embarrassed  when  I  asked  him  the  price  of 
anything  he  had  to  sell;  one  could  ask  him  anything 
else,  but  to  offer  money  to  Livingston  seemed  rather 
like  offering  money  to  your  host  after  an  excellent 
dinner. 

He  enjoyed  the  love  and  respect  of  all  book-col- 
lectors and  we  all  congratulated  him  when  he  grad- 
uated from  the  bookshop  to  the  library.  For  many 
years  in  charge  of  the  rare-book  department  of 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Company,  and  subsequently  a  part- 
ner of  Robert  Dodd,  he  was  the  first  custodian  of 
the  choice  collection  of  books  formed  by  the  late 
Harry  Elkins  Widener  and  bequeathed  by  the  lat- 
ter's  mother  to  Harvard.    A  more  admirable  selec- 


;^' 


"^ 


Ml 


<.  ^ 


'•y 


>u^ 


'^  I '  1 


^:Sl^ 


\ 


-'- 


BECKY    SHARP  THROU'IXa   DR.  JOHNSONS   "DIXONARV"   OIT   OF    TIIK 
CARRIAGE  WINDOW,  AS  SHE  LEAVES  .AUSS  PINKERTON'S  SCHOOL 

From  tliefus!  pen-aiid-oit  sk-etch,  b>i  Thuiktiuy.  •tftertrards  elaluraltd 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  49 

tion  could  not  have  been  made.  A  scholar  and  a 
gentleman,  he  brought  to  that  position  just  the  qual- 
ities needed  for  a  post  of  such  distinction,  but,  un- 
happily, he  lived  hardly  long  enough  to  take  pos- 
session of  it.  He  died  at  Christmas,  1914,  after  a  long 
and  painful  illness. 

James  F.  Drake,  in  New  York,  specializes  in  asso- 
ciation books  and  in  first  editions  of  nineteenth-cen- 
tury authors.  His  stock  I  have  frequently  laid  under 
contribution.  My  Surtees  and  many  other  colored- 
plate  books  came  from  him,  and  first  editions  innum- 
erable of  authors  now  becoming  "collected." 

I  know  of  no  bibliography  of  George  Moore,  but 
my  set  is,  I  think,  complete.  Many  are  presentation 
copies.  George  Moore's  many  admirers  will  remem- 
ber that  his  volume,  "  Memoirs  of  My  Dead  Life,"  is 
much  sought  in  the  first  English  edition.  I  have  the 
proof  sheets  of  the  entire  volume,  showing  many  cor- 
rections, as  in  the  specimen  on  page  50.  My  "Litera- 
ture at  Nurse,"  —  a  pamphlet  attacking  the  censor- 
ship of  the  novel  established  by  Mudie, — which  was 
published  at  threepence,  and  now  commands  forty 
dollars,  is  inscribed  to  Willie  Wilde;  while  "Pagan 
Poems"  was  a  suitable  gift  "To  Oscar  Wilde  with 
the  author's  compliments." 

There  is  no  halt  in  the  constantly  advancing  value 
of  first  editions  of  Oscar  Wilde.  That  interest  in  the 
man  still  continues,  is  evidenced  by  the  steady  stream 
of  books  about  him.  Ransome's  "Oscar  Wilde,"  im- 
mediately suppressed;    "Oscar  Wilde   Three  Times 


112       MEMOIRS  OF  MY  DEAD  LIFE 

mw  sAme  tope  as  the  sky.    And  what  did  I  feel  ?    Soft 

LOVERS  OP  perfumed  airs  moving  everywhere.  And  what  was 
the  image  that  rose  up  in  my  miod  'i  The  sensuous 
gratification  of  a  vision  of  a  woman  bathing  at  the 
edge  of  a  summer  wood,  the  intoxication  of  the 
odour  of  her  breasts.  .  .  .  Why  should  I  think  of 
a  womdn  bathing  at  the  edge  of  &  summer  wood  ? 
Because  the  morning  seemed  the  very  one  that 
Venus  should  choose  to  rise  from  the  sea  and  come 
into  one's  bedroom.  Forgive  my  sensuousness, 
dear  reader;  remember  that  it  was  the  first  time 
I  breathed  the  soft  Southern  air,  the  first  time  I 
saw  orange  trees;  remember  that  I  am  a  poet,  a 
modem  Jason  in  search  of  a  golden  fleece.  '  Is  this 
the  garden  of  the  Hpsperides?'  I  asked  myself,  for 
nothing  seemed  more  unreal  than  the  golden  fruit 
hanging  like  balls  of  yellow  worsted  among  dark  and 
sleek  leaves ;  it  reminded  me  of  the  fi^uit  I  used  to 
see  when  I  was  a  child  under  glass  shades  in  lodging- 
houses,  but  I  knew,  nevertheless,  that  I  was  looking 
upon  orange  trees,  and  that  the  golden  Aruit  growing 
amid  the  green  leitVes  was  the  fruit  I  used  to  pick 
from  the  barrows  when  I  was  a  boy  \  the  fruit  of  which 
I  ate  so  much  in  boyhood  that  I  cannot  eat  it  any 
longer;  the  fruit  whose  smell  we  associate  with  the 
pit  of  a  theatre }  the  fruit  that  women  never  grow 
weary  of,  high  and  low.  It  seemed  to  me  a  wonder* 
ful  thing  that  at  last  I  should  see  oranges  growing 
on  trees)  \  %»  hpppyjsa  oinguiariy  happy,  tli.i>  I  urn 
liappluebii  Is,  aftt.1  all,  my-vtos^^neta. 
g  Ikcultji'  flji  lA-liift  uuipiisud. — CiB«e  I  was  a  buyt     ^  \ 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME 


51 


PAGAN    POEMS. 


GEORGE    MOORE, 


Tried,"  and  "The  First  Stone,"  privately  printed  by 
the  "Unspeakable  Scot,"  already  difficult  to  procure, 
are  among  the 
latest. 

For  books  of  the 
moment,  published 
in  small  editions 
which  almost  im- 
mediately become 
scarce,}Drake's  shop 
in  Fortieth  Street  is 
headquarters;  and 
as  my  club  in  New 
York  is  near  by, 
I  find  myself  fre- 
quently dropping 
in  for  a  book  and 
a  bit  of  gossip. 

There  are  draw- 
backs as  well  as 
compensations  to 
living  in  the  coun- 
try. "Gossip  about 
Book  Collecting  "  has  its  charms,  as  William  Loring 
Andrews  has  taught  us.  It  is  sometimes  difiicult  to 
get  it,  living  as  I  do  "twelve  miles  from  a  lemon"; 
and  so,  when  I  am  in  New  York  and  have  absorbed 
what  I  can  at  Drake's,  who  is  very  exact  in  the  in- 
formation he  imparts,  I  usually  call  on  Gabriel  Wells. 
How  Wells  receives  you  with  open  arms  and  a  good 


LONDOKt 

NEWMAN    AND    CO., 
43,   HART    STREET. 

MDCCCWm. 


BLOOMSBURY,^  Vf.C 


52        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

cigar,  in  his  lofty  rooms  on  the  Avenue  overlooking 
the  Library',  is  known  to  most  collectors.  Books  in 
sets  are, — perhaps  I  should  say,  were,  —  his  spe- 
cialty; recently  he  has  gone  in  for  very  choice  items, 
which,  when  offered,  must  be  secured,  or  anguish  is 
one's  portion  thereafter.  My  last  interview  with  him 
resulted  in  my  separating  myself  from  a  bunch  of 
Liberty  Bonds,  which  I  had  intended  as  a  solace  for 
my  old  age;  but  a  few  words  from  Wells  convinced 
me  that  Dr.  Johnson  w^as  right  when  he  said,  *'It  is 
better  to  live  rich  than  die  rich";  and  so  I  walked 
away  with  a  copy  of  Blake's  *' Marriage  of  Heaven 
and  Hell,"  which  is  about  as  rare  a  book  as  one  can 
hope  to  find  at  the  end  of  a  busy  day. 

It  was,  if  I  remember  correctly,  Ernest  Dressel 
North  who  first  aroused  my  interest  in  Lamb,  bib- 
liographically .  I  had  ^earned  to  love  him  in  a  dumpty 
little  green  cloth  volume,  "Elia  and  Eliana,"  published 
by  Moxon,  which  I  had  picked  up  at  Leary's,  and 
which  bears  upon  its  title-page  the  glaring  inaccu- 
racy, —  "The  Only  Complete  Edition."  I  have  this 
worthless  little  volume  among  my  first  editions;  to 
me  it  is  one,  and  it  is  certainly  the  last  volume  of 
Lamb  I  would  part  with. 

It  must  be  all  of  thirty  years  ago  that  I  went  to 
London  with  a  list  of  books  by  and  about  Charles 
Lamb  —  some  twenty  volumes  in  all  —  which  North 
had  prepared  for  me.  I  came  across  this  list  not  long 
ago,  and  was  amused  at  the  prices  that  he  suggested 
I  might  safely  pay.     Guineas  where  his  hst  gives 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  5S 

shillings  would  not  to-day  separate  the  books  from 
their  owners. 

It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  I  made  my  first  Lamb 
pilgrimage,  going  to  every  place  of  interest  I  could 
find,  from  Christ's  Hospital,  then  in  Newgate  Street, 
where  I  saw  the  Blue-Coat  boys  at  dinner,  to  the 
neglected  grave  in  Edmonton  Churchyard,  where 
Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  lie  buried  side  by  side.  The 
illustration  facing  page  54  is  made  from  a  negative 
I  procured  in  1890,  of  the  house  at  Enfield  in  which 
Lamb  lived  from  October,  1829,  until  May,  1833. 

A  good  story  is  told  of  my  friend,  Edmund  D. 
Brooks,  the  bookseller  of  far-off  Minneapolis.  Brooks, 
who  knows  his  way  about  London  and  is  as  much 
at  home  with  the  talent  there  as  any  other  man,  set 
out  one  day  to  make  a  "quick  turn,"  in  stock-market 
parlance.  Armed  with  a  large  sum  of  money,  the 
sinews  of  book-buying  as  well  as  of  war,  he  casually 
dropped  in  on  Walter  Spenser,  who  was  offering  for 
sale  the  manuscript  of  Dickens's  "  Cricket."  The  price 
was  known  to  be  pretty  steep,  but  Brooks  was  pre- 
pared to  pay  it.  WTiat  he  did  not  know  was  that,  in 
an  upper  room  over  Spenser's  shop,  another  book- 
seller, also  with  a  large  sum  in  pocket,  was  debating 
the  price  of  this  very  item,  raising  his  offer  by  slow 
degrees.  But  it  did  not  take  Brooks  long  to  discover 
that  negotiations  were  progressing  and  that  quick 
action  was  necessary.  Calling  Spenser  aside,  he  in- 
quired the  price,  paid  the  money,  and  took  the  in- 
valuable manuscript  away  in  a  taxi.     The  whole 


54       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

transaction  liad  occupied  only  a  couple  of  minutes. 
Spenser  then  returned  to  his  first  customer,  who 
continued  the  attack  until,  to  close  the  argument, 
Spenser  quietly  remarked  that  the  manuscript  had 
been  sold,  paid  for,  and  had  passed  out  of  his  pos- 
session. 

It  reminds  one  of  the  story  of  how  the  late  A.  J. 
Cassatt,  the  master  mind  of  the  railroad  presidents 
of  his  time,  bought  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington 
&  Baltimore  Railway  right  under  the  nose  of  Presi- 
dent Garrett  of  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio.  There  were 
loud  cries  of  anguish  from  the  defeated  parties  on 
both  occasions,  but  the  book-selling  story  is  not  over 
yet,  for  a  few  hours  later  Sabin,  the  bookseller  de 
luxe,  had  the  Dickens  manuscript  displayed  in  his 
shop-window  in  Bond  Street,  and  Brooks  had  a  sheaf 
of  crisp  Bank  of  England  notes  in  his  pocket,  with 
which  to  advance  negotiations  in  other  directions. 

I  take  little  or  no  interest  in  bindings;  I  want  the 
book  as  originally  published,  in  boards  uncut,  in  old 
sheep,  or  in  cloth,  and  as  clean  and  fair  as  may  be. 

I  am  not  without  a  sense  for  color,  and  the  backs  of 
books  bound  in  various  colored  leathers,  suitably  gilt, 
placed  with  some  eye  for  arrangement  on  the  shelves, 
are  to  me  as  beautiful  and  suggestive  as  any  picture; 
yet,  as  one  cannot  have  everything,  I  yield  the  beauty 
and  fragrance  of  leather  for  the  fascination  of  the 
"original  state  as  issued." 

Nor  am  I  unmindful  how  invariably  in  binding  a 
book,  in  trimming,  be  it  ever  so  little,  and  gilding  its 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  55 

edges,  one  lops  off  no  small  part  of  its  value.  This 
fact  should  be  pointed  out  to  all  young  collectors. 
They  should  learn  to  let  their  books  alone,  and  if  they 
must  patronize  a  binder,  have  slip-cases  or  pull-cases 
made.  They  serve  every  purpose.  The  book  will  be 
protected  if  it  is  falling  apart  and  unpresentable,  and 
one's  craving  for  color  and  gilt  will  be  satisfied.  As 
Eckel  says  in  his  "Bibliography  of  Dickens,"  "The 
tendency  of  the  modern  collector  has  steadily  moved 
toward  books  in  their  original  state,  —  books  as  they 
were  when  created,  —  and  it  is  doubtful  if  there  will 
be  much  deviation  from  this  taste  in  the  future." 

Only  the  very  immature  book-buyer  will  deprive 
himself  of  the  pleasure  of  "collecting,"  and  buy  a 
complete  set  of  some  author  he  much  esteems,  in 
first  editions,  assembled  and  bound  without  care  or 
thought  other  than  to  produce  a  piece  of  merchandise 
and  sell  it  for  as  much  as  it  will  fetch.  The  rich  and 
ignorant  buyer  should  be  made  to  confine  his  atten- 
tion to  the  purchase  of  "subscription"  books.  These 
are  produced  in  quantity  especially  for  his  benefit, 
and  he  should  leave  our  books  alone.  The  present 
combination  of  many  rich  men  and  relatively  few  fine 
books  is  slowly  working  my  ruin;  I  know  it  is.  We 
live  in  a  law-full  age,  an  age  in  which  it  seems  to  be 
every  one's  idea  to  pass  laws.  I  would  have  a  law  for 
the  protection  of  old  books,  and  our  legislators  in 
Washington  might  do  much  worse  than  consider  this 
suggestion. 

One  other  form  of  book  the  collector  should  be 


KJifK)^^^ 


INSCRIITION   IN   A  COPY  OF   "THE  MGGER  OF  THE   'NARCISSUS'" 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  57 

warned  against  —  the  extra-illustrated  volume.  The 
extra-illustration  of  a  favorite  author  is  a  tedious  and 
expensive  method  of  wasting  money,  and  mutilating 
other  books  the  while.  I  confess  to  having  a  few,  but 
I  have  bought  them  at  a  very  small  part  of  what  they 
cost  to  produce,  and  I  do  not  encourage  their  pro- 
duction. 

I  know  something  of  the  art  of  inlaying  prints.  I 
had  a  distinguished  and  venerable  teacher,  the  late 
Ferdinand  J.  Dreer  of  Philadelphia,  who  formed  a 
priceless  collection  of  autographs,  which  at  his  death 
he  bequeathed  to  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. Mr.  Dreer  was  a  collector  of  the  old  school. 
He  was  a  friend  of  John  Allan,  one  of  the  earliest 
book-collectors  in  this  country,  of  whom  a  "Memo- 
rial" was  published  by  the  Bradford  Club  in  1864. 
Mr.  Dreer  spent  the  leisure  of  years  and  a  small  for- 
tune in  inlaying  plates  and  pages  of  text  of  such  books 
as  he  fancied.  I  remember  well  as  a  lad  being  allowed 
to  pore  over  his  sumptuous  extra-illustrated  books, 
filled  with  autograph  letters,  portraits,  and  views,  for 
hours  at  a  time.  Little  did  I  think  that  these  volumes, 
the  object  of  such  loving  care,  would  be  sold  at  auction. 

Many  years  after  his  death  the  family  decided  to 
dispose  of  a  portion  of  his  library.  Stan.  Henkels  con- 
ducted the  sale.  When  the  well-known  volumes  came 
up,  I  was  all  in  a  tremble.  It  seemed  hardly  possible 
that  any  of  the  famous  Dreer  books  were  to  come 
within  my  grasp.  But  alas!  fashions  change,  as  I 
have  said  before.   A  "History  of  the  Bank  of  North 


58        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

America,"  our  oldest  national  bank,  which  enjoys 
the  unique  distinction  of  not  calling  itself  a  national 
bank,  went,  not  to  an  oflScer  or  director  of  that  sound 
old  Philadelphia  institution,  but  to  George  D.  Smith 
of  New  York,  for  a  song  —  in  a  high  key,  but  a  song 
nevertheless. 

An  "Oration  in  Carpenter's  Hall"  in  Philadelphia 
brought  close  to  a  thousand  dollars;  but,  in  addition  to 
the  rare  portraits  and  views,  there  were  fifty-seven 
autograph  letters  in  it.  Sold  separately,  they  would 
have  brought  several  times  as  much.  Smith  was  the 
buyer.  Then  there  came  a  "History  of  Christ 
Church,"  full  of  most  interesting  material,  as  "old 
Christ  Church"  is  the  most  beautiful  and  interesting 
colonial  church  in  America.  WTiere  was  the  rector, 
where  were  the  wardens  and  the  vestry  thereof.'*  No 
sign  of  them.   Smith  was  the  buyer. 

The  books  were  going  and  for  almost  nothing,  in 
every  case  to  "Smith."  At  last  came  the  "Memoirs 
of  Nicholas  Biddle,"  of  the  famous  old  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  Hear !  ye  Biddies,  if  any  Biddies  there 
be.  There  are,  in  plenty,  but  not  here.  Smith,  having 
bought  all  the  rest,  stopped  when  he  saw  me  bidding; 
the  hammer  fell,  and  I  was  the  owner  of  the  most 
interesting  volume  in  the  whole  Dreer  collection,  — 
the  volume  I  had  so  often  coveted  as  a  boy,  with 
the  letters  and  portraits  of  Penn,  Franklin,  Adams, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Marshall,  and  so  forth,  —  in  all 
twenty-eight  of  them,  and  mine  for  ten  dollars 
apiece,  book,  portraits,  and  binding  thrown  in.  It 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  59 

is  painful  to  witness  the  slaughter  of  another's  pos- 
sessions; it  makes  one  wonder —  But  that  is  not  what 
we  collect  books  for. 

In  the  last  analysis  pretty  much  everything,  in- 
cluding poetry,  is  merchandise,  and  every  important 
book  sooner  or  later  turns  up  in  the  auction  rooms. 
The  dozen  or  fifty  men  present  represent  the  book- 
buyers  of  the  world  —  you  are  buying  against  them. 
When  you  sell  a  book  at  auction  the  whole  world  is 
your  market.  This  refers,  of  course,  only  to  important 
sales.  At  other  times  books  are  frequently  disposed 
of  at  much  less  than  their  real  value.  These  sales  it 
pays  the  book-collector  to  attend,  personally,  if  he 
can;  or,  better  still,  to  entrust  his  bid  to  the  auctioneer 
or  to  some  representative  in  whom  he  has  confidence. 
Most  profitable  of  all  for  the  buyer  are  the  sales 
where  furniture,  pictures,  and  rugs  are  disposed  of, 
with,  finally,  a  few  books  knocked  down  by  one  who 
knows  nothing  of  their  value. 

Many  are  the  volumes  in  my  library  which  have 
been  picked  up  on  such  occasions  for  a  very  few  dol- 
lars, and  which  are  worth  infinitely  more  than  I  paid 
for  them.  I  have  in  mind  my  copy  of  the  first  edition 
of  Boswell's  "Corsica,"  in  fine  old  calf,  with  the  in- 
scription "To  the  Right  Honourable,  the  Earl  Maris- 
chal  of  Scotland,  as  a  mark  of  sincere  regard  and 
affection,  from  the  Author,  James  Boswell."  This 
stands  me  only  a  few  dollars.  In  London  I  should 
have  been  asked  —  and  would  have  paid  —  twenty 
pounds  for  it. 


60        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Some  men  haunt  the  auction  rooms  all  the  time. 
I  do  not.  I  have  a  living  to  make  and  I  am  not  quick 
in  making  it;  moreover,  the  spirit  of  competition  in- 
variably leads  me  astray,  and  I  never  come  away  with- 
out finding  myself  the  owner  of  at  least  one  book, 
usually  a  large  one,  which  should  properly  be  en- 
titled, "What  Will  He  Do  With  It?" 

No  book-collector  should  be  without  a  book-plate, 
and  a  book-plate  once  inserted  in  a  volume  should 
never  be  removed.  When  the  plate  is  that  of  a  good 
collector,  it  constitutes  an  indorsement,  and  adds  a 
certain  interest  and  value  to  the  volume. 

I  was  once  going  through  the  collection  of  a  friend, 
and  observing  the  absence  of  a  book-plate,  I  asked 
him  why  it  was.  He  replied,  "The  selection  of  a  book- 
plate is  such  a  serious  matter."  It  is;  and  I  should 
never  have  been  able  to  get  one  to  suit  me  entirely 
had  not  my  good  friend,  Osgood  of  Princeton,  come 
to  my  rescue. 

He  was  working  in  my  library  some  years  ago  on 
an  exquisite  appreciation  of  Johnson,  when,  noticing 
on  my  writing-table  a  pen-and-ink  sketch,  he  asked, 
"What's  this.''"  I  replied  with  a  sigh  that  it  was  a 
suggestion  for  a  book-plate  which  I  had  just  received 
from  London.  I  had  described  in  a  letter  exactly  what 
I  wanted  —  an  association  plate  strictly  in  eighteenth- 
century  style.  Fleet  Street  was  to  be  indicated,  with 
Temple  Bar  in  the  background.  It  was  to  be  plain 
and  dignified  in  treatment.  What  came  was  indeed 


o 


Sir.thebjooraphicalpart  of  literatare 
is  what  I  ItA'c  moft  . ' 


9 

TaES 


^— t^^ 


'rf^/^d(u4i^ 


Tlie  book-plate  illustrates  an  incident  described  in  Hoswell.  Johnson  and  (iold- 
smith  were  walking  one  day  in  the  Poets'  Corner  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Looking 
at  the  graves,  Johnson  solemnly  repeated  a  line  from  a  Latin  jioet,  which  might 
be  freely  translated,  ••  I'erehance  some  (Sax  owx  names  will  mingle  with  these." 
As  they  strolled  home  through  the  Strand.  Goldsmith's  eye  liglited  upon  the  heads 
of  two  traitors  rotting  on  the  spikes  over  Temple  Bar.  Remembering  that  John- 
son anil  he  were  rather  Jacobitic  in  sentiment,  pointing  to  the  lieads  and  giving 
Johnson's  quotation  a  twist,  Goldsmith  remarked,  •'  I'erhaps  some  day  our  heads 
will  mingle  with  those." 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  61 

a  sketch  of  Fleet  Street  and  very  much  more.  There 
were  scrolls  and  flourishes,  eggs  and  darts  and  fleurs- 
de-lis  —  a  little  of  everything.  In  a  word  it  was  im- 
possible.   "Let  me  see  what  I  can  do,"  said  Osgood. 

When  I  returned  home  that  evening  there  was  wait- 
ing for  me  an  exquisite  pencil  sketch,  every  detail 
faultless:  Fleet  Street  with  its  tavern  signs,  in  the 
background  Temple  Bar  with  Johnson  and  Gold- 
smith, the  latter  pointing  to  it  and  remarking  slyly, 
"Forsitan  et  nomen  nostrum  miscebitur  istis."  I  was 
delighted,  as  I  had  reason  to  be.  In  due  course,  after 
discussions  as  to  the  selection  of  a  suitable  motto,  we 
finally  agreed  on  a  line  out  of  Boswell:  "Sir,  the  bio- 
graphical part  of  literature  is  what  I  love  most";  and 
the  sketch  went  off  to  Sidney  Smith  of  Boston,  the 
distinguished  book-plate  engraver. 

I  have  a  fondness  for  college  professors.  I  must 
have  inherited  it  from  a  rich  old  uncle,  from  whom  I 
unluckily  inherited  nothing  else,  who  had  a  similar 
weakness  for  preachers.  Let  a  man,  however  stupid, 
once  get  a  license  to  wear  his  collar  backwards,  and 
the  door  was  flung  wide  and  the  table  spread.  I  have 
often  thought  what  an  ecstasy  of  delight  he  would 
have  been  thrown  into  had  he  met  a  churchman  whose 
rank  permitted  him  to  wear  his  entire  ecclesiastical 
panoply  backwards. 

My  weakness  for  scholars  is  just  such  a  whimsy.  As 
a  rule  they  are  not  so  indulgent  to  collectors  as  they 
should  be.  They  write  books  that  we  buy  and  read 
—  when  we  can.    My  lifelong  friend,  Felix  Schelling 


62       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

(in  England  he  would  be  Sir  Felix)  is  more  lenient 
than  most.  My  copy  of  his  *' Elizabethan  Drama," 
which  has  made  him  famous  among  students,  is 
uncut  and,  I  am  afraid,  to  some  extent  unopened. 
Frankly,  it  is  too  scholarly  to  read  with  enjoyment. 
Indeed,  I  sometimes  think  that  it  was  my  protest 
that  led  him  to  adopt  the  easier  and  smoother  style 
apparent  in  his  later  books,  "English  Literature  dur- 
ing the  Lifetime  of  Shakespeare,"  and  "The  English 
Lyric."  Be  this  as  it  may,  he  has  shown  that  he  can 
use  the  scholarly  and  the  familiar  style  with  equal 
facility;  and  when  he  chooses,  he  can  turn  a  compli- 
ment like  one  of  his  own  sixteenth-century  courtiers. 
I  had  always  doubted  that  famous  book-index 
story,  "Mill,  J.  S.,  *0n  Liberty';  Ditto,  'On  the 
Floss,'"  until  one  day  my  friend  Tinker  sent  me  a 
dedication  copy  of  his  "Dr.  Johnson  and  Fanny 
Burney,"  in  which  I  read  —  and  knew  that  he  was 
poking  fun  at  me  for  my  bookish  weakness  —  this:  — 

This  copy  is  a  genuine  sp>ecimen  of  the  first  edition,  un- 
cut and  unopened,  signed  and  certified  by  the  editor. 

Chauncey  Brewster  Tinker. 

No  copy  is  now  known  to  exist  of  the  suppressed  first 
state  of  the  first  edition  —  that  in  which,  instead  of  the 
present  entry  in  the  index,  under  Poi>e,  Alexander,  page 
111,  occurred  the  words,  "Pope  Alexander  111." 

How  much  more  valuable  this  copy  would  have 
been  if  this  blunder  —  "point,"  the  judicious  would 
call  it  —  had  not  been  corrected  until  the  second 
edition ! 


BOOK-COLLECTING  AT  HOME  63 

The  work  of  my  office  was  interrupted  one  summer 
morning  several  years  ago  by  the  receipt  of  a  cable 
from  London,  apparently  in  code,  which,  I  was  ad- 
vised, would  not  translate.  Upon  its  being  submitted 
to  me  I  found  that  it  did  not  require  translating,  but 
I  was  not  surprised  that  it  was  somewhat  bewilder- 
ing to  others.  It  read,  '^^  Johnson  Piazza  Dictionary 
Pounds  Forty  Hut.''  To  me  it  was  perfectly  clear  that 
Mrs.  Thrale-Piozzi's  copy  of  Johnson's  Dictionary  in 
two  volumes  folio  was  to  be  had  from  my  friend  Hutt 
for  forty  pounds.  I  dispatched  the  money  and  in  due 
course  received  the  volumes.  Inserted  in  one  of  them 
was  a  long  holograph  letter  to  the  Thrales,  giving 
them  some  excellent  advice  on  the  management  of 
their  affairs. 

I  think  it  very  probably  in  your  power  to  lay  up  eight 
thousand  pounds  a  year  for  every  year  to  come,  increasing 
all  the  time,  what  needs  not  be  increased,  the  splendour  of 
all  external  appearance,  and  surely  such  a  state  is  not  to 
be  put  in  yearly  hazard  for  the  pleasure  of  keeping  the 
house  full,  or  the  ambition  of  outbrewing  Whitbread.  Stop 
now  and  you  are  safe  —  stop  a  few  years  and  you  may  go 
safely  on  thereafter,  if  to  go  on  shall  seem  worth  the  while. 

Johnson's  letters,  like  his  talks,  are  compact  with 
wisdom,  and  many  of  them  are  as  easy  as  the  pro- 
verbial old  shoe.  Fancy  Sam  Johnson,  the  great  lexi- 
cographer, writing  to  Mrs.  Thrale  and  telling  her  to 
come  home  and  take  care  of  him  and,  as  he  says,  to 

Come  with  a  whoop,  come  with  a  call. 
Come  with  a  good  will,  or  come  not  at  all. 


64        AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

I  own  thirty  or  forty  Johnson  letters,  ineUiding  the 
one  in  which  he  describes  what  she  called  his  "me- 
nagerie"—  dependents  too  old,  too  poor,  or  too 
peevish  to  find  asylum  elsewhere.  He  writes,  "AVe 
have  tolerable  concord  at  home,  but  no  love.  Wil- 
liams hates  everybody.  Levet  hates  Desmoulines, 
and  does  not  love  Williams.  Desmoulines  hates  them 
both.   Poll  loves  none  of  them." 

But  I  must  be  careful.  I  had  firmly  resolved  not  to 
say  anything  which  would  lead  any  one  to  suspect 
that  I  am  Johnson-mad,  but  I  admit  that  such  is  the 
case.  I  am  never  without  a  copy  of  Boswell.  What 
edition.^  Any  edition.  I  have  them  all  —  the  first  in 
boards  uncut,  for  my  personal  satisfaction ;  an  extra- 
illustrated  copy  of  the  same,  for  display;  Birkbeck 
Hill's,  for  reference,  and  the  cheap  old  Bohn  copy 
which  thirty  years  ago  I  first  read,  because  I  know  it 
by  heart.  Yes,  I  can  truly  say  with  Leslie  Stephen, 
*'My  enjoyment  of  books  began  and  will  end  with 
Boswell's  'Life  of  Johnson.'" 


"(iCt)Ou  fool !   to  jjeeh  companiottj^  in  a  ccotoD ! 
Snto  tbp  room,  anD  tftcre  upon  tb?  ftneci*, 
■before  tbp  boohrtel^ej*,  bumbl?  tbanh  tb?  «Sob, 
dbat  tbou  bajjt  friend^  lihe  tbcsc ! " 


Ill 

OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES 

The  true  book-lover  is  usually  loath  to  destroy  an  old 
book-catalogue.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  give  a  reason 
for  this,  unless  it  is  that  no  sooner  has  he  done  so  than 
he  has  occasion  to  refer  to  it.  Such  catalogues  reach 
me  by  almost  every  mail,  and  I  while  away  many 
hours  in  turning  over  their  leaves.  Anatole  France 
in  his  charming  story,  "The  Crime  of  Sylvestre  Bon- 
nard,"  makes  his  dear  old  book-collector  say,  "There 
is  no  reading  more  easy,  more  fascinating,  and  more 
delightful  than  that  of  a  catalogue  ";  and  it  is  so,  for 
the  most  part;  but  some  catalogues  annoy  me  ex- 
ceedingly :  those  which  contain  long  lists  of  books  that 
are  not  books;  genealogies;  county  (and  especially 
town)  histories,  illustrated  with  portraits;  obsolete 
medical  and  scientific  books;  books  on  agriculture 
and  diseases  of  the  horse.  How  it  is  that  any  one  can 
make  a  living  by  vending  such  merchandise  is  bej^ond 
me  —  but  so  are  most  things. 

Living,  however,  in  the  country,  and  going  to  town 
every  day,  I  spend  much  time  on  the  trains,  and  must 
have  something  to  read  besides  newspapers,  —  who 
was  it  who  said  that  reading  newspapers  is  a  nervous 
habit?  —  and  it  is  not  always  convenient  to  carry  a 
book;  so  I  usually  have  a  few  catalogues  which  I  mark 
industriously,  thus  presenting  a  fine  imitation  of  a 


66        AIMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

busy  man.  One  check  means  a  book  that  I  own,  and 
I  note  with  interest  the  prices;  another,  a  book  that 
I  would  Hke  to  have;  while  yet  another  indicates  a 
book  to  which  under  no  circumstances  would  I  give 
a  place  on  my  shelves.  When  my  library  calls  for  a 
ridding  up,  these  slim  pamphlets  are  not  discarded 
as  they  should  be,  but  are  stored  in  a  closet,  to  be  re- 
ferred to  when  needed,  until  at  last  something  must 
be  done  to  make  room  for  those  that  came  to-day  and 
those  that  will  come  to-morrow. 

On  one  of  these  occasional  house-clearings  I  came 
across  a  bundle  of  old  catalogues  which  I  have  never 
had  it  in  me  to  destroy.  One  of  them  was  published 
in  1886,  by  a  man  I  knew  well  years  ago,  Charles 
Hutt,  of  Clement's  Inn  Gateway,  Strand.  Hutt  him- 
self has  long  since  passed  away;  so  has  his  shop,  the 
Gateway;  and,  indeed,  the  Strand  itself  —  his  part  of 
it,  that  is.  I  sometimes  think  that  the  best  part  of 
old  London  has  disappeared.  Need  I  say  that  I  refer 
to  Holywell  Street  and  the  Clare  Market  district 
which  lay  between  the  Strand  and  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  which  Dickens  knew  and  described  so  well.'* 
Hutt  in  his  day  was  a  man  of  considerable  impor- 
tance. He  was  the  first  London  bookseller  to  realize 
the  direction  and  value  of  the  American  market.  Had 
he  lived,  my  friends  Sabin  and  Spencer  and  Maggs 
would  have  had  a  serious  rival. 

All  the  old  catalogues  before  me  are  alike  in  one 
important  respect,  namely,  the  uniformly  low  prices. 
From  the  standpoint  of  to-day  the  prices  were  ab- 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      67 

surdly  low  —  or  are  those  of  to-day  absurdly  high? 
I,  for  one,  do  not  think  so.  When  a  man  puts  pen  to 
paper  on  the  subject  of  the  prices  of  rare  books,  he 
feels  —  at  least  I  feel  —  that  it  is  a  silly  thing  to  do, 
—  and  yet  we  collectors  have  been  doing  it  always, 
or  almost  always,  —  to  point  out  that  prices  have 
about  reached  top  notch,  and  that  the  wise  man  will 
wait  for  the  inevitable  decline  before  he  separates 
himself  from  his  money. 

Now,  it  is  my  belief  that  books,  in  spite  of  the  high 
prices  that  they  are  bringing  in  the  shops  and  at  auc- 
tion, have  only  just  begun  their  advance,  and  that 
there  is  no  limit  to  the  prices  they  will  bring  as  time 
goes  on.  The  only  way  to  guess  the  future  is  to  study 
the  past;  and  such  study  as  I  have  been  able  to  make 
leads  me  to  believe  that  for  the  really  great  books  the 
sky  is  the  limit. 

*'The  really  great  books!"  WTiat  are  they,  and 
where  are  they.^  I  am  not  sure  that  I  know;  they  do 
not  often  come  my  way,  nor,  when  they  do,  am  I  in 
a  position  to  compete  for  them;  but  as  I  can  be  per- 
fectly happy  without  an  ocean-going  yacht,  content- 
ing myself  with  a  motor-boat,  so  can  I  make  shift  to 
get  along  without  a  Gutenberg  Bible,  without  a  first 
folio  of  Shakespeare,  or  any  of  the  quartos,  in  short, 
sans  any  of  those  books  which  no  millionaire's  li- 
brary can  be  without.  But  this  I  will  say,  that  if  I 
could  afford  to  buy  them,  I  would  pay  any  price  for 
the  privilege  of  owning  them. 

A  man  may  be  possessed  of  relatively  small  means 


68        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  yet  indulge  himself  in  all  the  joys  of  collecting, 
if  he  will  deny  himself  other  things  not  so  important 
to  his  happiness.  It  is  a  problem  in  selection,  as  Elia 
points  out  in  his  essay  "Old  China,"  when  a  weighing 
for  and  against  and  a  wearing  of  old  clothes  is  recom- 
mended by  his  sister  Bridget,  if  the  twelve  or  sixteen 
shillings  saved  is  to  enable  one  to  bring  home  in  tri- 
umph an  old  folio.  As  a  book-collector.  Lamb  would 
not  take  high  rank;  but  he  was  a  true  book-lover, 
and  the  books  he  liked  to  read  he  liked  to  buy.  And 
just  here  I  may  be  permitted  to  record  how  I  came 
across  a  little  poem,  in  the  manuscript  of  the  author, 
which  exactly  voices  his  sentiments  —  and  mine. 

I  was  visiting  Princeton  not  long  ago,  that  beauti- 
ful little  city,  with  its  lovely  halls  and  towers:  and 
interested  in  libraries  as  I  always  am,  had  secured 
permission  to  browse  at  will  among  the  collections 
formed  by  the  late  Laurence  Hutton.  After  an  in- 
spection of  his  "Portraits  in  Plaster,"  —  a  collection 
of  death-masks,  unique  in  this  country  or  elsewhere, 
—  I  turned  my  attention  to  his  association  books.  It 
is  a  difficult  lot  to  classify,  and  not  of  overwhelming 
interest;  not  to  be  compared  with  the  Richard  Wain 
Meirs  collection  of  Cruikshank,  which  has  just  been 
bequeathed  to  the  Library;  but  nothing  which  is  a 
book  is  entirely  alien  to  me,  and  the  Hutton  books, 
with  their  inscriptions  from  their  authors,  testifying 
to  their  regard  for  him  and  to  his  love  of  books,  are 
well  worth  examination. 

I  had  opened  many  volmnes  at  random,  and  finally 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      69 

chanced  upon  Brander  Matthews's  "Ballads  of 
Books,"  a  little  anthology  of  bookish  poems,  for  many 
years  a  favorite  of  mine.  Turning  to  the  inscription, 
I  found  —  what  I  found;  but  what  interested  me 
particularly  was  a  letter  from  an  English  admirer,  one 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  inclosing  some  verses,  of  which 
I  made  a  copy  without  the  permission  of  any  one.  I 
did  not  ask  the  librarian,  for  he  might  have  referred 
the  question  to  the  trustees,  or  something;  but  I  did 
turn  to  a  speaking  likeness  of  "Larry"  that  hung 
right  over  the  bookcase  and  seemed  to  say,  "Why, 
sure,  fellow  book-lover;  pass  on  the  torch,  print  any- 
thing you  please."  And  these  are  the  verses:  — 

BALLADE  OF  A  POOR  BOOK-LOVER 


Though  in  its  stem  vagaries  Fate 

A  poor  book-lover  me  decreed, 
Perchance  mine  is  a  happy  state  — 

The  books  I  buy  I  hke  to  read: 
To  me  dear  friends  they  are  indeed, 

But,  howe'er  enviously  I  sigh. 
Of  others  take  I  little  heed  — 

The  books  I  read  I  hke  to  buy. 

11 

My  depth  of  purse  is  not  so  great 

Nor  yet  my  bibhophiUc  greed, 
That  merely  buying  doth  elate: 

The  books  I  buy  I  like  to  read: 
Still  e'en  when  dawdling  in  a  mead. 

Beneath  a  cloudless  summer  sky, 
By  bank  of  Thames,  or  Tyne,  or  Tweed, 

The  books  I  read  —  I  like  to  buy. 


70        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

in 

Some  books  tho'  tooled  in  style  ornate. 

Yet  worms  upon  their  contents  feed. 
Some  men  about  their  bindings  prate  — 

The  books  I  buy  I  like  to  read : 
Yet  some  day  may  my  fancy  breed 

My  ruin  —  it  may  now  be  nigh  — 
They  reap,  we  know,  who  sow  the  seed: 

The  books  I  read  I  like  to  buy. 

ENVOY 

Tho'  frequently  to  stall  I  speed, 

The  books  I  buy  I  like  to  read; 
Yet  wealth  to  me  will  never  hie  — 

The  books  I  read  I  hke  to  buy. 

Two  things  there  are  which  go  to  make  the  price 
of  a  book  —  first  the  book  itself,  its  scarcity,  together 
with  the  urgency  of  the  demand  for  it  (a  book  may 
be  unique  and  yet  practically  valueless,  because  of 
the  fact  that  no  one  much  cares  to  have  it);  and 
second,  the  plentifulness  of  money,  or  the  ease  with 
which  its  owner  may  have  acquired  his  fortune.  No 
one  will  suppose  that,  at  the  famous  auction  in  Lon- 
don something  over  a  hundred  years  ago,  when  Earl 
Spencer  bid  two  thousand,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  for  the  famous  Boccaccio,  and  the  Marquis  of 
Blandford  added,  imperturbedly,  "ten,"  and  secured 
the  prize  —  no  one  will  suppose  that  either  of  the 
gentlemen  had  a  scanty  rent-roll. 

In  England,  the  days  of  the  great  private  libraries 
are  over.  For  generations,  indeed  for  centuries,  the 
English  have  had  the  leisure,  the  inclination,  and  the 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      71 

means  to  gratify  their  taste.  They  once  searched  the 
Continent  for  books  and  works  of  art,  very  much  as 
we  now  go  to  England  for  them.  They  formed  their 
libraries  when  books  were  plentiful  and  prices  low. 
Moreover,  there  were  fewer  collectors  than  there 
are  to-day.  We  are  paying  big  prices,  —  the  English 
never  sell  except  at  a  profit,  —  but,  all  things  con- 
sidered, we  are  not  paying  more  for  the  books  than 
they  are  worth.  There  are  probably  now  in  England 
as  many  collectors  as  there  ever  were,  but  neverthe- 
less the  books  are  coming  to  this  country;  and  while 
we  may  never  be  able  to  rival  the  treasures  of  the 
British  Museum  and  the  Bodleian,  outside  the  great 
public  libraries  the  important  collections  are  now  in 
this  country,  and  will  remain  here. 

And  I  am  not  sure  how  much  longer  the  London 
dealers  are  going  to  retain  their  preeminence.  We 
hear  of  New  York  becoming  the  centre  of  the  financial 
world.  It  will  in  time  become  the  centre  of  the  book- 
selling world  as  well,  the  best  market  in  which  to 
buy  and  in  which  to  sell.  With  the  possible  exception 
of  Quaritch,  George  D.  Smith  has  probably  sgld  as 
many  rare  books  as  any  man  in  the  world;  while  Dr. 
Rosenbach,  on  the  second  floor  of  his  shop  in  Phila- 
delphia, has  a  stock  of  rare  books  unequaled  by  any 
other  dealer  in  this  country. 

Ask  any  expert  where  the  great  books  are,  and  you 
will  be  told,  if  you  do  not  know  already,  of  the  won- 
ders of  Mr.  Morgan's  collections;  of  how  Mr.  Hunt- 
ington has  bought  one  library  after  another  until  he 


72       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

has  practically  everything  obtainable;  of  Mr.  William 
K.  Bixby's  manuscripts,  of  Mr.  White's  collection  of 
the  Elizabethans,  and  of  Mr.  Folger's  Shakespeares. 

There  are  as  many  tastes  as  there  are  collectors. 
Caxtons  and  incunabula  of  any  sort  are  highly  re- 
garded; even  the  possession  of  a  set  of  the  Shake- 
speare folios  makes  a  man  a  marked  man,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  Henrietta  Bartlett  says  they  are  not 
rare;  but  then.  Miss  Bartlett  has  been  browsing  on 
books  rarer  still,  namely,  the  first  quartos,  of  which 
there  are  of  "Hamlet"  two  copies  only,  one  in  this 
country  with  a  title-page,  but  lacking  the  last  leaf, 
while  the  other  copy,  in  the  British  Museum,  has 
the  last  leaf  but  lacks  the  title-page;  and  "Venus 
and  Adonis,"  of  the  first  eight  editions  of  which  only 
thirteen  copies  are  known  to  exist.  All  of  these  are 
as  yet  in  England,  except  one  copy  of  the  second 
edition,  which  is  owned  by  the  Elizabethan  Club  of 
Yale  University.  Of  "Titus  Andronicus"  there  is 
only  one  copy  of  the  first  printing,  this  in  the  library 
of  H.  C.  Folger  of  New  York.  Surely  no  one  will  dis- 
pute Miss  Bartlett's  statement  that  the  quartos  are 
rare  indeed. 

But  why  continue?  Enough  has  been  said:  the 
point  I  want  to  make  is  that  fifty  years  from  now 
someone  will  be  regretting  that  he  was  not  present 
when  a  faultless  first  folio  could  have  been  had  for  the 
trifling  sum  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  at  which 
figure  a  dealer  is  now  offering  one.  Or,  glancing  over 
a  copy  of  "Book  Prices  Current"  for  1918,  bewail  the 


HENRY  E.  HUNTINGTOX  OF  NEW  YORK 


A  few  years  ago  he  conceived  the  idea  of  forming  the  greatest  private  library  in  the 
world.  With  the  help  of  "(r.  D.  S."  and  assisted  by  a  staff  of  able  librarians,  he  has 
accomplished  what  he  set  out  to  do. 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      73 

time  when  presentation  copies  of  Dickens  could  have 
been  had  for  the  trifling  sum  of  a  thousand  dollars. 
Hush !  I  feel  the  spirit  of  prophecy  upon  me. 

I  sat  with  Harry  Widener  at  Anderson's  auction 
rooms  a  few  years  ago,  on  the  evening  when  George 
D.  Smith,  acting  for  Mr.  Huntington,  paid  fifty 
thousand  dollars  for  a  copy  of  the  Gutenberg  Bible. 
No  book  had  ever  sold  for  so  great  a  price,  yet  I  feel 
sure  that  Mr.  Huntington  secured  a  bargain,  and  I 
told  him  so;  but  for  the  average  collector  such  great 
books  as  these  are  mere  names,  as  far  above  the 
ordinary  man  as  the  moon;  and  the  wise  among  us 
never  cry  for  them ;  we  content  ourselves  with  — 
something  else. 

In  collecting,  as  in  everything  else,  experience  is 
the  best  teacher.  Before  we  can  gain  our  footing  we 
must  make  our  mistakes  and  have  them  pointed  out 
to  us,  or,  by  reading,  discover  them  for  ourselves.  I 
have  a  confession  to  make.  Forty  years  ago  I  thought 
that  I  had  the  makings  of  a  numismatist  in  me,  and 
was  for  a  time  diligent  in  collecting  coins.  In  order 
that  they  might  be  readily  fastened  to  a  panel  covered 
with  velvet,  I  pierced  each  one  with  a  small  hole,  and 
was  much  chagrined  when  I  was  told  that  I  had  ab- 
solutely ruined  the  lot,  which  was  worth,  perhaps,  ten 
dollars.  This  was  not  a  high  price  to  pay  for  the  dis- 
covery I  then  made  and  noted,  that  it  is  the  height  of 
wisdom  to  leave  alone  anything  of  value  which  may 
come  my  way;  to  repair,  inlay,  insert,  mount,  frame, 
or  bind  as  little  as  possible. 


74        AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

This  is  not  to  suggest  that  my  Hbrary  is  entirely 
devoid  of  books  in  bindings.  A  few  specimens  of  the 
good  binders  I  have,  but  what  I  value  most  is  a  sound 
bit  of  straight-grained  crimson  morocco  covering  the 
"Poems  of  Mr.  Gray"  with  one  of  the  finest  examples 
of  fore-edge  painting  I  have  ever  seen,  representing 
Stoke  Poges  Church  Yard,  the  scene  of  the  immortal 
'*  Elegy.'*  I  was  much  pleased  when  I  discovered  that 
this  binding  bore  the  stamp  of  Taylor  &  Hessey,  a 
name  I  had  always  associated  with  first  editions  of 
Charles  Lamb. 

How  many  people  have  clipped  signatures  from 
old  letters  and  documents,  under  the  mistaken  no- 
tion that  they  were  collecting  autographs.  I  happen 
to  own  the  receipt  for  the  copyright  of  the  "Essays 
of  Elia."  It  was  signed  by  Lamb  twice,  originally; 
one  signature  has  been  cut  away.  It  is  a  precious 
possession  as  it  is,  but  I  could  wish  that  the  "col- 
lector" in  whose  hands  it  once  was  had  not  removed 
one  signature  for  his  "scrapbook"  — properly  so 
called.  Nor  is  the  race  yet  dead  of  those  who,  in- 
dulging a  vicious  taste  for  subscription  books,  think 
that  they  are  forming  a  library.  My  coins  I  have 
kept  as  an  ever-present  reminder  of  the  mistake  of 
my  early  days.  Luckily  I  escaped  the  subscription - 
book  stage. 

WTiat  we  collect  depends  as  well  upon  our  taste  as 
upon  our  means,  for,  given  zeal  and  intelligence,  it  is 
surprising  how  soon  one  acquires  a  collection  of  — 
whatever  it  may  be  —  which  becomes  a  source  of  re- 


1^     & 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      75 

laxation  and  instruction;  and  after  a  little  one  be- 
comes, if  not  exactly  expert,  at  least  wise  enough  to 
escape  obvious  pitfalls.  When  experience  directs  our 
efforts  the  chief  danger  is  past.  But  how  much  there 
is  to  know !  I  never  leave  the  company  of  a  man  like 
Dr.  Rosenbach,  or  A.  J.  Bowden,  or  the  late  Luther 
Livingston,  without  feeling  a  sense  of  hopelessness 
coming  over  me.  WTiat  wonderful  memories  these 
men  have!  how  many  minute  "points"  about  books 
they  must  have  indexed,  so  to  speak,  in  their  minds ! 
And  there  are  collectors  whose  knowledge  is  equally 
bewildering.  Mr.  Wliite,  or  Beverly  Chew,  for  ex- 
ample; and  Harry  Widener,  who,  had  he  lived,  would 
have  set  a  new  and,  I  fear,  hopeless  standard  for  us. 

Not  knowing  much  myself,  I  have  found  it  wise  not 
to  try  to  beat  the  expert;  it  is  like  trying  to  beat  W^all 
Street  —  it  cannot  be  done.  How  can  an  outsider 
with  the  corner  of  his  mind  compete  with  one  who  is 
playing  the  game  ever  and  always?  The  answer  is 
simple  —  he  can't;  and  he  will  do  well  not  to  try.  It 
is  better  to  confess  ignorance  and  rely  upon  the  word 
of  a  reliable  dealer,  than  to  endeavor  to  put  one  over 
on  him.  This  method  may  enable  a  novice  to  buy  a 
good  horse,  although  such  has  not  been  my  experi- 
ence. I  think  it  was  Trollope  who  remarked  that  not 
even  a  bishop  could  sell  a  horse  without  forgetting 
that  he  was  a  bishop.  I  think  I  would  rather  trust  a 
bookseller  than  a  bishop. 

And  speaking  of  booksellers,  they  should  be  re- 
garded as  Hamlet  did  his  players,  as  the  abstract  and 


76        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

brief  chronicles  of  the  time;  and  it  would  be  well  to 
remember  that  their  ill  report  of  you  while  you  live  is 
much  worse  than  a  bad  epitaph  after  you  are  dead. 
Their  stock  in  trade  consists,  not  only  in  the  books 
they  have  for  sale,  but  in  their  knowledge.  This  may 
be  at  your  disposal,  if  you  use  them  after  your  own 
honor  and  dignity;  but  to  live,  they  must  sell  books 
at  a  profit,  and  the  delightful  talk  about  books  which 
you  so  much  enjoy  must,  at  least  occasionally,  result 
in  a  sale.  Go  to  them  for  information  as  a  possible 
customer,  and  you  will  find  them,  as  Dr.  Johnson 
said,  generous  and  liberal-minded  men ;  but  use  them 
solely  as  walking  encyclopaedias,  and  you  may  come 
to  grief. 

I  have  on  the  shelves  over  yonder  a  set  of  Foxe's 
"Martyrs"  in  three  ponderous  volumes,  which  I  sel- 
dom have  occasion  to  refer  to;  but  in  one  volume  is 
pasted  a  clipping  from  an  old  newspaper,  telling  a  story 
of  the  elder  Quaritch.  A  young  lady  once  entered  his 
shop  in  Piccadilly  and  requested  to  see  the  great  man. 
She  wanted  to  know  all  that  is  to  be  known  of  this 
once  famous  book,  all  about  editions  and  prices  and 
"points,"  of  which  there  are  many.  Finally,  after  he 
had  answered  questions  readily  enough  for  some 
time,  the  old  man  became  wise,  and  remarked,  "Now, 
my  dear,  if  you  want  to  know  anything  else  about 
this  book,  my  fee  will  be  five  guineas."  The  trans- 
action was  at  an  end.  Had  Quaritch  been  a  lawyer 
and  the  young  lady  a  stranger,  her  first  question 
would  have  resulted  in  a  request  for  a  retainer. 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      77 

But  I  am  a  long  time  in  coming  to  my  old  cata- 
logues. Let  me  take  one  at  random,  and  opening  it  at 
the  first  page,  pick  out  the  first  item  which  meets  my 
eye.   Here  it  is:  — 

Alken,  Heney  —  Analysis  of  the  Hunting  Field.  Wood- 
cuts and  colored  illustrations.  First  edition,  royal  8vo. 
original  cloth,  uncut.   Ackerman,  1846.   £2. 

It  was  the  last  work  but  one  of  a  man  who  is  now 
*' collected"  by  manj^  who,  like  myself,  would  as  soon 
think  of  riding  a  zebra  as  a  hunter.  My  copy  cost  me 
$100,  while  my  ''Life  of  Mytton,"  third  edition,  I 
regarded  as  a  bargain  at  $50.  Had  I  been  wise  enough 
to  buy  it  five  and  thirty  years  ago,  I  would  have  paid 
about  as  many  shillings  for  it. 

With  sporting  books  in  mind  it  is  quite  natural  to 
turn  to  Surtees.  His  "Jo rrocks' Jaunts  and  Jollities" 
is  missing  from  this  catalogue,  but  here  are  a  lot  of 
them.  "Mr.  Sponge's  Sporting  Tour"  in  full  levant 
morocco,  extra,  by  Tout,  for  three  guineas,  and  "Ask 
Mamma"  in  cloth,  uncut,  for  £2  15^.  "Handley 
Cross"  is  priced  at  fifty  shillings,  and  "Facey  Rom- 
ford's Hounds"  at  two  pounds  —  all  first  editions, 
mind  you,  and  for  the  most  part  just  as  you  w^ant 
them,  in  the  original  cloth,  uncut.  My  advice  would 
be  to  forget  these  prices  of  yesteryear,  and  if  you 
want  a  set  of  the  best  sporting  novels  ever  written 
(I  know  a  charming  woman  who  has  read  every  one 
of  them)  go  at  once  to  them  that  sell. 

But  while  we  are  thinking  of  colored-plate  books, 
let  us  see  what  it  would  have  cost  us  to  secure  a  copy 


78        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

of  A  Beckett's  "Comic  History  of  Rome."  Here  it  is, 
"complete  in  numbers  as  originally  published,"  four 
guineas;  while  a  "Comic  History  of  England,"  two 
volumes,  bound  by  Riviere  from  the  original  parts, 
in  full  red  levant  morocco,  extra,  cost  five  guineas.  I 
have  tried  to  read  these  histories  —  it  cannot  be  done. 
It  is  like  reading  the  not  very  funny  book  of  an  old- 
time  comic  opera  (always  excepting  Gilbert's),  which 
depended  for  its  success  on  the  music  and  the  acting 
—  as  these  books  depend  on  their  illustrations  by 
Leech.  It  is  on  account  of  the  humor  of  their  wonder- 
fully caricatured  portraits  of  historic  personages,  in 
anachronistic  surroundings,  that  these  books  live  and 
deserve  to  live.  What  could  be  better  than  the  landing 
of  Julius  Caesar  on  the  shores  of  Albion,  from  the  deck 
of  a  channel  steamer  of  Leech's  own  time.'^ 

Did  you  observe  that  the  "History  of  Rome"  was 
bound  up  from  the  original  parts?  This,  according  to 
modem  notions,  is  a  mistake.  Parts  should  be  left 
alone  —  severely  alone,  I  should  say.  I  have  no  love 
for  books  "in  parts,"  and  as  this  is  admitted  heresy, 
I  should  perhaps  explain.  As  is  well  known,  some  of 
the  most  desired  of  modern  books,  "Pickwick"  and 
"Vanity  Fair"  for  example,  were  so  published,  and 
particulars  as  to  one  will  indicate  the  reason  for  my 
prejudice  against  all  books  "in  parts." 

In  April,  1916,  in  New  York,  the  Coggeshall 
Dickens  collection  was  dispersed,  and  a  copy  of  "Pick- 
wick" in  parts  was  advertised,  no  doubt  correctly,  as 
the  most  nearly  perfect  copy  ever  offered  at  a  public 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      79 

sale.  Two  full  pages  of  the  catalogue  were  taken  up 
in  a  painstaking  description  of  the  birthmarks  of  this 
famous  book.  It  was,  like  most  of  the  other  great 
novels,  brought  out  "twenty  parts  in  nineteen,"  — 
that  is,  the  last  number  was  a  double  number,  —  and 
with  a  page  of  the  original  manuscript,  it  brought 
$5350.  When  a  novel  published  less  than  a  century 
ago  brings  such  a  price,  it  must  be  of  extraordinary 
interest  and  rarity.  Was  the  price  high.^  Decidedly 
not !  There  are  said  to  be  not  ten  such  copies  in  exist- 
ence. It  was  in  superb  condition,  and  manuscript 
pages  of  "Pickwick"  do  not  grow  on  trees.  All  the 
details  which  go  to  make  up  a  perfect  set  can  be  found 
in  Eckel's  "First  Editions  of  Charles  Dickens." 

Briefly,  in  order  to  take  high  rank  it  is  necessary 
that  each  part  should  be  clean  and  perfect  and  should 
have  the  correct  imprint  and  date;  it  should  have  the 
proper  number  of  illustrations  by  the  right  artist;  and 
these  plates  must  be  original  and  not  reetched,  and 
almost  every  plate  has  certain  peculiarities  which 
will  mislead  the  unwary.  But  this  is  not  all.  Each 
part  carried  certain  announcements  and  advertise- 
ments. These  must  be  carefully  looked  to,  for  they 
are  of  the  utmost  value  in  determining  whether  it  be 
an  early  or  a  later  issue  of  the  first  edition.  An  ad- 
vertisement of  "Rowland  and  Son's  Toilet  Prepara- 
tions" where  "Simpson's  Pills"  should  be,  might  lead 
to  painful  discussion. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the  possession  of 
a  copy  of  "Pickwick"  like  the  Coggeshall  copy  is  an 


80        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

asset  or  a  liability.  It  must  be  handled  with  gloves; 
the  pea-green  paper  wrappers  are  very  tender,  and 
not  everyone  who  insists  on  seeing  your  treasures 
knows  how  to  treat  such  a  pamphlet;  and,  horror  of 
horrors!  a  "part"  might  get  stacked  up  with  a  pile  of 
"Outlooks"  on  the  library  table,  or  get  mislaid  alto- 
gether. So  on  the  whole  I  am  inclined  to  leave  such 
books  to  those  whose  knowledge  of  bibliography  is 
more  exact  than  mine,  and  who  would  not  regard 
the  loss  of  a  "part"  as  an  irretrievable  disaster.  My 
preference  is  to  get,  when  I  can,  books  bound  in 
cloth  or  boards  "as  issued."  They  are  sufficiently 
expensive  and  can  be  handled  with  greater  freedom. 
My  library  is,  in  a  sense,  a  circulating  library:  my 
books  move  around  with  me,  and  a  bound  book,  in 
some  measure  at  least,  takes  care  of  itself.  Having 
said  all  of  which,  I  looked  upon  that  Coggeshall 
"Pickwick,"  and  lusted  after  it. 

There  is,  however,  an  even  greater  copy  awaiting 
a  purchaser  at  Rosenbach's.  It  is  a  presentation  copy 
in  parts,  the  only  one  known  to  exist.  Each  of  the 
first  fourteen  parts  has  Dickens's  autograph  inscrip- 
tion, "Mary  Hogarth  from  hers  most  affectionately," 
variously  signed  —  in  full,  "Charles  Dickens,"  with 
initials,  or  "The  Editor."  After  the  publication  of 
the  fourteenth  part  Miss  Hogarth,  his  sister-in-law,  a 
young  girl  in  her  eighteenth  year,  died  suddenly,  and 
the  shock  of  her  death  was  so  great  that  Dickens 
was  obliged  to  discontinue  work  upon  "Pickwick"  for 
two  months.    No  doubt  this  is  the  finest  "  Pickwick  " 


"  Blake  being  unable  to  find  a  jmljlishtT  for  li  is  snnfjs,  Mrs.  lilake 
went  out  with  half  a  crown,  all  the  money  tln'v  li;(<l  in  the  world, 
anil  of  that  laid  out  Is.  UKl.  on  the  sinij)le  materials  necessary  for 
setting  in  practice  the  new  revelation.  I'pon  that  investment 
of  Is.  lOd.  he  started  what  was  to  prove  a  i)rincii)al  means  of 
support  through  his  future  life.  .  .  .  Tlie  poet  and  his  wife  diii 
everything  in  making  the  book,  —  writing,  designing,  printing, 
engraving,  everything  excejit  manufacturing  the  i)ai)er.  The 
very  ink,  or  color  rather,they  did  make."  —  (iii.riiHisT. 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      81 

in  the  world.  It  has  all  the  "points"  and  to  spare  — 
and  the  price,  well,  only  a  very  rich  or  a  very  wise  man 
could  buy  it. 

But  to  return  to  my  catalogue.  Here  is  Pierce 
Egan's  "Boxiana,"  five  volumes,  8vo,  as  clean  as  new, 
in  the  original  boards,  uncut,  —  that's  my  style, — 
and  the  price,  twelve  pounds;  three  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  would  be  a  fair  price  to-day.  And  here  is 
the  "Anecdotes  of  the  Life  and  Transactions  of  Mrs. 
Margaret  Rudd,"  a  notorious  woman  who  just  es- 
caped hanging  for  forgery,  of  whom  Dr.  Johnson  once 
said  that  he  would  have  gone  to  see  her,  but  that  he 
was  prevented  from  such  a  frolic  by  his  fear  that  it 
would  get  into  the  newspapers.  I  have  been  looking 
for  it  in  vain  for  years;  here  it  is,  in  new  calf,  price 
nine  shillings,  and  Sterne's  "Sentimental  Journey," 
first  edition,  in  contemporary  calf,  for  thirty. 

Let  us  turn  to  poetry.  Arnold,  Matthew,  not  in- 
teresting; nothing,  it  chances,  by  Blake;  his  "Poeti- 
cal Sketches,"  1783,  has  always  been  excessively  rare, 
only  a  dozen  or  so  copies  are  known,  and  "Songs  of 
Innocence  and  of  Experience,"  while  not  so  scarce,  is 
much  more  desired.  This  lovely  book  was  originally 
"Songs  of  Innocence"  only,  "Experience"  came  later, 
as  it  always  does.  Of  all  the  books  I  know,  this  is  the 
most  interesting.  It  is  in  very  deed  "AY.  Blake,  his 
book,"  the  author  being  as  well  the  designer,  en- 
graver, printer,  and  illuminator  of  it. 

To  attempt  in  a  paragraph  any  bibliographical  ac- 
count of  the  "  Songs  "  is  as  impossible  as  to  give  the 


82        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

genealogy  of  a  fairy.  In  the  ordinary  sense  the  book 
was  never  published.  Blake  sold  it  to  such  of  his 
friends  as  would  buy,  at  prices  ranging  frpm  thirty 
shillings  to  two  guineas.  Later,  to  help  him  over  a 
difficulty  (and  his  life  was  full  of  difficulties),  they 
paid  him  perhaps  as  much  as  twenty  pounds  and 
in  return  got  a  copy  glowing  with  colors  and  gold. 
Hence  no  two  copies  are  exactly  alike.  It  is  one  of 
the  few  books  of  which  a  man  fortunate  enough  to 
own  any  copy  may  say,  "I  like  mine  best."  The 
price  to-day  for  an  average  copy  is  about  two  thou- 
sand dollars. 

I  can  see  clearly  now  that  in  order  to  be  up  to  date 
there  must  be  a  new  edition  of  this  book  every  min- 
ute. I  had  just  suggested  $2000  as  the  probable  price 
of  the  "Songs"  when  a  priced  copy  of  the  Linnell 
Catalogue  of  his  Blake  Collection  reached  me.  This, 
the  last  and  greatest  Blake  collection  in  England,  was 
sold  at  auction  on  March  15,  1918,  and  accustomed 
as  I  am  to  high  prices  I  was  bewildered  as  I  turned 
its  pages.  There  were  two  copies  of  the  "Songs"; 
each  brought  £735.  The  "Poetical  Sketches"  was 
conspicuous  by  its  absence,  while  the  "Marriage  of 
Heaven  and  Hell"  was  knocked  down  for  £756.  The 
drawings  for  Dante's  "Divina  Commedia,"  sixty- 
eight  in  all,  brought  the  amazing  price  of  £7665. 
And  these  prices  will  be  materially  advanced  before 
the  booksellers  are  done  with  them,  as  we  shall  see 
when  their  catalogues  arrive.  We  come  back  to 
earth  with  a  thud  after  this  lofty  flight,  in  the  course 


_    * 


c  ^ 


O     s.' 


-    o 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      83 

of  which  we  seem  to  have  been  seeing  visions  and 
dreaming  dreams,  much  as  Blake  himself  did. 

Continuing  to  "beat  the  track  of  the  alphabet," 
we  reach  Bronte  and  note  that  now  scarce  item, 
"Poems  by  Currer,  Ellis  and  Acton  Bell,"  the  gen- 
uine first  edition  printed  by  Hasler  in  1846,  for 
Aylott  &  Jones,  before  the  title-page  bore  the  Smith- 
Elder  imprint;  price  two  pounds  five.  Walter  Hill's 
last  catalogue  has  a  Smith -Elder  copy  at  $12.50, 
but  the  right  imprint  now  makes  a  difference  of 
several  hundred  dollars.  About  a  year  ago  Edmund 
D.  Brooks,  of  Minneapolis,  was  offering  Charlotte 
Bronte's  own  copy  of  the  book,  with  the  Aylott  and 
Jones  imprint,  with  some  manuscript  notes  which 
made  it  especially  interesting  to  Bronte  collectors, 
the  most  important  of  whom,  by  the  way,  is  my  life- 
long friend,  H.  H.  Bonnell  of  Philadelphia,  whose 
unrivaled  Bronte  collection  is  not  unworthy  of  an 
honored  place  in  the  Bronte  Museum  at  Ha  worth.  I 
called  his  attention  to  it,  but  he  already  had  a  presenta- 
tion copy  to  Ebenezer  Elliott,  the  Corn-Law  rhymer. 

Burns:  the  first  Edinburgh  edition,  for  a  song;  no 
Kilmarnock  edition  —  that  fine  old  item  which  every 
collector  wants  has  always  been  excessively  scarce; 
and  in  this  connection  let  me  disinter  a  good  story  of 
how  one  collector  secured  a  copy.  The  story  is  told  of 
John  Allan,  from  whom,  as  a  collector,  I  am  descended 
by  the  process  of  clasping  hands.  My  old  friend, 
Ferdinand  Dreer,  for  more  than  sixty  years  a  dis- 
tinguished collector  in  Philadelphia,  was  an  intimate 


84        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

friend  of  Allan's,  and  passed  on  to  me  the  collecting 
legends  he  had  received  from  him.  Allan  was  an  old 
Scotchman,  living  in  New  York  when  the  story  be- 
gins, who  by  his  industry  had  acquired  a  small  for- 
tune, much  of  which  he  spent  in  the  purchase  of 
books.  He  collected  the  books  of  his  period  and  extra- 
illustrated  them.  Lives  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and 
Byron;  Dibdin,  of  course,  and  Americana;  but  Burns 
was  his  ruling  passion.  He  had  the  first  Edinburgh 
edition,  and  longed  for  the  Kilmarnock  —  as  who 
does  not?  He  had  a  standing  order  for  a  copy  up  to 
seven  guineas,  which  in  those  days  was  considered  a 
fair  price,  and  finally  one  was  reported  to  him  from 
London  at  eight.  He  ordered  it  out,  but  it  was  sold 
before  his  letter  arrived,  and  he  was  greatly  disap- 
pointed. Some  time  afterward  a  friend  from  the  old 
country  visited  him,  and  as  he  was  sailing,  asked  if 
he  could  do  anything  for  him  at  home.  *'Yes,"  said 
Allan,  "get  me,  if  you  possibly  can,  the  Kilmarnock 
edition  of  Burns."  His  friend  was  instructed  as  to  its 
scarcity  and  the  price  he  might  have  to  pay  for  it. 
On  his  return  his  friend,  engaged  as  usual  in  his  affairs, 
discovered  that  one  of  his  workmen  was  drunk.  In 
those  days  it  was  not  considered  good  form  to  get 
drunk  except  on  Saturday  night.  How  could  he  get 
drunk  in  the  middle  of  the  week.'*  WTiere  did  he  get 
the  money .'^  The  answer  was  that  by  pawning  some 
books  ten  shillings  had  been  raised.  "And  what  books 
had  you.'*"  "Oh,  Burns  and  some  others;  every 
Scotchman  has  a  copy  of  Burns."    Then,  suddenly 


i^ae 


'^'^^^BCJS^si^s 


^^m 


->-»-f->~»">-*-*-»">")-»"»-»"*">->->"»->->-».»»>-»-4.4.*.^«>.» 


1  P    O    E    M    S, 


CHIEFLY     IN     THE 


I    SCOTTISH    DIALECT, 


B    Y 


ROBERT     BURNS. 


I 

THE  Simple  Bard,  unbroke  by  rules  of  Art,  J 

He  pours  the  wild  effijfions  of  the  heart :  y 

And  if  infpir'd,  'iii  Nature's  pow'rs  infpire;  y 

Her's  all  the  melting  thrill,  and  her's  the  kiodling  fire.  y 

Anonymous.      ^ 

T 
t 

T 

KILMARNOCK:  t 

PRINTED     BY    JOHN    WILSON.         ^ 

t 

r 


M,DCC,LXXXVI. 


w9^ 


86        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

remembering  his  old  friend  in  New  York,  he  asked, 
"What  sort  of  a  copy  was  it?"  "The  old  Kilmar- 
nock," was  the  reply.  Not  to  make  the  story  too  long, 
the  pawn-ticket  was  secured  for  a  guinea,  the  books 
redeemed,  and  the  Kilmarnock  Burns  passed  into 
Allan's  possession. 

After  his  death  his  books  were  sold  at  auction 
(1864).  This  was  during  our  Civil  War,  and  several 
times  the  sale  was  suspended  owing  to  the  noise  of  a 
passing  regiment  in  the  street.  Notwithstanding  that 
times  were  not  propitious  for  book-sales,  his  friends 
were  astonished  at  the  prices  realized:  the  Burns 
fetched  $106.  It  was  probably  a  poor  copy.  A  gen- 
eration or  two  ago  not  as  much  care  was  paid  to  con- 
dition as  now.  Very  few  uncut  copies  are  known.  One 
is  owned  by  a  man  as  should  n't.  Another  is  in  the 
Burns  Museum  in  Ayrshire,  which  cost  the  Museum 
Trustees  a  thousand  pounds;  the  Canfield,  which  was 
purchased  by  Harry  Widener  for  six  thousand  dollars, 
and  the  Van  Antwerp  copy,  which,  at  the  sale  of  his 
collection  in  London  in  1907,  brought  seven  hundred 
pounds;  but  much  bibliographical  water  has  gone 
over  the  dam  since  1907,  and  for  some  reason  the  Van 
Antwerp  books,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two 
items,  did  not  bring  as  good  prices  as  they  should  have 
done.  They  were  sold  at  an  unfortunate  moment  and 
perhaps  at  the  wrong  place.  In  Walter  Hill's  current 
catalogue  there  is  a  Kilmarnock  Burns,  in  an  old 
binding,  which  looks  very  cheap  to  me  at  $2600.  At 
the  Allan  sale  an  Eliot  Bible  brought  the  then  enor- 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      87 

mous  sum  of  $825.  Supposing  an  Eliot  Bible  were 
obtainable  to-day,  it  would  bring,  no  doubt,  five 
thousand  dollars,  perhaps  more. 

This  is  a  long  digression.  There  are  other  desired 
volumes  besides  Burns.  Here  is  a  "Paradise  Lost," 
perhaps  not  so  fine  a  copy  as  Sabin  is  now  offering  for 
four  hundred  pounds;  but  the  price  is  only  thirty 
pounds;  and  this  reminds  me  that  in  Beverly  Chew's 
copy,  an  exceptionally  fine  one,  as  all  the  books  of 
that  fastidious  collector  are,  there  is  an  interesting 
note  made  by  a  former  owner  to  this  effect:  "This  is 
the  first  edition  of  this  book  and  has  the  first  title- 
page.  It  is  worth  nearly  ten  pounds  and  is  rising  in 
value.   1857." 

Alphabetically  speaking,  it  is  only  a  step  from  Mil- 
ton to  Moore,  George.  Here  is  his  "Flowers  of  Pas- 
sion," for  which  I  paid  fifteen  dollars  ten  or  more 
years  ago  —  priced  at  half  a  crown. 

But  let  us  take  up  another  catalogue,  one  which 
issued  from  the  world-famous  shop  in  Piccadilly, 
Quaritch's.  Forty  years  ago  Quaritch  thought  it  al- 
most beneath  his  dignity  as  a  bookseller  to  offer  for 
sale  any  except  the  very  rarest  books  in  English;  very 
much  as,  up  to  within  the  last  few  years,  the  Univer- 
sities of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  did  not  think  it  worth 
their  while  to  refer  more  than  casually  to  the  glories 
of  English  literature.  \Mien  we  open  an  old  Quaritch 
catalogue,  we  step  out  of  this  age  into  another,  which 
leads  me  to  observe  how  remarkable  is  the  change  in 
taste  which  has  come  over  the  collecting  world  in  the 


88        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

last  fifty  years.  Formerly  it  was  the  fashion  to  collect 
extensively  books  of  which  few  among  us  now  know 
anything:  books  in  learned  or  painful  languages,  on 
Philosophy  or  Religion,  as  well  as  those  which,  for 
the  want  of  a  better  name,  we  call  "Classics";  books 
frequently  spoken  of,  but  seldom  read. 

Such  books,  unless  very  valuable  indeed,  no  longer 
find  ready  buyers.  We  have  come  into  our  great  in- 
heritance. We  now  dip  deep  in  our  "well  of  English 
undefyled";  Aldines  and  Elzevirs  have  gone  out  of 
fashion.  Even  one  of  the  rarest  of  them,  "Le  Pastis- 
sier  Frangois,"  is  not  greatly  desired;  and  I  take  it  that 
the  reason  for  this  change  is  chiefly  due  to  the  dif- 
ference in  the  type  of  men  who  are  prominent  among 
the  buyers  of  fine  books  to-day.  Formerly  the  col- 
lector was  a  man,  not  necessarily  with  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, but  with  an  education  entirely  different  from 
that  which  the  best  educated  among  us  now  receive. 
I  doubt  if  there  are  in  this  country  to-day  half  a  dozen 
important  bookbuyers  who  can  read  Latin  with  ease, 
let  alone  Greek.  Of  French,  German,  and  Italian 
some  of  us  have  a  working  knowledge,  but  most  of  us 
prefer  to  buy  books  which  we  can  enjoy  without  con- 
stant reference  to  a  dictionary. 

The  world  is  the  college  of  the  book-collector  of 
to-day.  Many  of  us  are  busy  men  of  affairs,  familiar, 
it  may  be,  with  the  price  of  oil,  or  steel,  or  copper,  or 
coal,  or  cotton,  or,  it  may  be,  with  the  price  of  the 
"shares"  of  all  of  these  and  more.  Books  are  our  re- 
laxation. We  make  it  a  rule  not  to  buy  what  we  can- 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      89 

not  read.  Some  of  us  indulge  the  vain  hope  that  time 
will  bring  us  leisure  to  acquaint  ourselves  fully  with 
the  contents  of  all  our  books.  We  want  books  written 
in  our  own  tongue,  and  most  of  us  have  some  pet 
author  or  group  of  authors,  or  period,  it  may  be,  in 
which  we  love  to  lose  ourselves  and  forget  the  cares 
of  the  present.  One  man  may  have  a  collection  of 
Pope,  another  of  Goldsmith,  another  of  Lamb,  and 
so  on.  The  drama  has  its  votaries  who  are  never  seen 
in  a  theatre;  but  look  into  their  libraries  and  you  will 
find  everything,  from  "Ralph  Roister  Doister"  to 
the  "Importance  of  Being  Earnest."  And  note  that 
these  collections  are  formed  by  men  who  are  not  stu- 
dents in  the  accepted  sense  of  the  word,  but  who,  in 
the  course  of  years,  have  accumulated  an  immense 
amount  of  learning.  Clarence  L.  Bement  is  a  fine 
example  of  the  collector  of  to-day,  a  man  of  large 
affairs  with  the  tastes  and  learning  of  a  scholar.  It 
has  always  seemed  to  me  that  professors  of  literature 
and  collectors  do  not  intermingle  as  they  should.  They 
might  learn  much  from  each  other.  I  yield  to  no 
professor  in  my  passion  for  English  literature.  My 
knowledge  is  deficient  and  inexact,  but  what  I  lack 
in  learning  I  make  up  in  love. 

But  we  are  neglecting  the  Quaritch  catalogue.  Let 
us  open  it  at  random,  as  old  people  used  to  open  their 
Bibles,  and  govern  their  conduct  by  the  first  text 
which  met  their  eyes.  Here  we  are:  "Grammatica 
Graeca,"  Milan,  1476;  the  first  edition  of  the  first 
book  printed  in  Greek;  one  of  six  known  copies.   So 


90        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

it  is  possible  for  only  six  busy  men  to  recreate  them- 
selves after  a  hard  day's  work  with  a  first  Greek 
Grammar.  Too  bad!  Here  is  another:  Macrobius, 
"The  Saturnalia"  —  "a  miscellany  of  criticism  and 
antiquities,  full  of  erudition  and  very  useful,  similar  in 
their  plan  to  the  *Noctes  Atticse'  of  Aulus  Gellius." 
No  doubt,  but  as  dead  as  counterfeit  money.  Here 
is  another:  Boethius,  "De  Consolatione  Philoso- 
phise." Boethius!  I  seem  to  have  heard  of  him.  Who 
was  he.^  Not  in  "WTio's  "WTio,"  obviously.  Let  us 
look  elsewhere.  Ah!  "Famous  philosopher  and  offi- 
cial in  the  Court  of  Theodoric,  born  about  475  a.d., 
put  to  death  without  trial  about  524."  They  had  a 
short  way  with  philosophers  in  those  days.  If  Wil- 
liam the  Second  to  None  in  Germany  had  adopted 
this  method  with  his  philosophers,  the  world  might 
not  now  be  in  such  a  plight. 

Note :  A  college  professor  to  whom  I  was  in  con- 
fidence showing  these  notes  the  other  day,  remarked, 
"I  suggest  that  you  soft-pedal  that  Boethius  busi- 
ness, my  boy."  (How  we  middle-aged  men  love  to 
call  each  other  boys;  very  much  as  young  boys  flat- 
ter themselves  with  the  phrase,  "old  man.")  "The 
*  Consolation  of  Philosophy '  was  the  best  seller  for  a 
thousand  years  or  so.  Boethius's  reputation  is  not 
in  the  making,  as  yours  is,  and  when  made  will  in  all 
probability  not  last  as  long."  I  thought  I  detected 
a  slight  note  of  sarcasm  in  this,  but  I  may  have  been 
mistaken. 

Let  us  look  further.  Here  we  are:  "Coryat's  Crudi- 


Fifteeiitli-cciiturv  Kii!::lisli  iii:iimscrii)t  "ii  vellmu.  ••Iif  fdnxihitioni'  I'liiln- 
sophia-.'  Itiibricated  tlin>u;;himt.  Its  oliM  i' iiili-ifsr  is  tlic  <(iiit(iiii)i)i;ir\  himl- 
iiijC,  consisting  of  tlie  usual  oak  boards  covi'icd  with  )iink  (leiTskin,  let  into 
another  piece  of  deerskin  wliieli  completely  surrounds  it  and  terminate-,  in  a 
large  knot.  A  elasp  fastens  the  outer  cover.  It  was  evidently  intended  to  lie 
worn  at  the  girdle.  The  IJritish  Museum  po>se;*>c.s  ver\  few  hindinu's  of  this 
character  and  these  service  hooks.     Lay  houk>  are  of  even  greater  r.irity. 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      91 

ties,  hastily  gobbled  up  in  five  Moneths  Trauells." 
Tom  Coryat  was  a  buffoon  and  a  beggar  and  a  brag- 
gart, who  wrote  what  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  the 
first  handbook  on  travel.  Browning  thought  very 
highly  of  it,  as  I  remember,  and  Walter  Hill  is  at  this 
very  minute  offering  his  copy  of  the  "Crudities'*  for 
five  hundred  dollars.  The  catalogues  say  there  are 
very  few  perfect  copies  in  existence,  in  which  case  I 
should  like  to  content  myseff  with  Browning's  im- 
perfect copy.  I  love  these  old  books,  written  by  frail 
human  beings  for  human  beings  frail  as  myseff. 
Clowns  are  the  true  philosophers,  and  all  vagabonds 
are  beloved,  most  of  all,  Locke's.  Don't  confuse  my 
Locke  with  the  fellow  who  wrote  on  the  "Human 
Understanding,"  a  century  or  two  ago. 

Here  is  the  "Ship  of  Fools,"  another  best  seller 
of  a  bygone  age.  The  original  work,  by  Sebastian 
Brandt,  was  published  not  long  after  the  invention  of 
printing,  in  1494.  Edition  followed  edition,  not  only 
in  its  original  Swabian  dialect,  but  also  in  Latin, 
French,  and  Dutch.  In  1509  an  English  version,  — 
it  could  hardly  be  called  a  translation,  —  by  Alex- 
ander Barclay,  appeared  from  the  press  of  Pynson  — 
he  who  called  Caxton  "worshipful  master."  For 
quite  two  hundred  years  it  was  the  rage  of  the  read- 
ing world.  In  it  the  vices  and  weaknesses  of  all 
classes  of  society  were  satirized  in  a  manner  which 
gave  great  delight;  and  those  who  could  not  read 
were  able  to  enjoy  the  fine,  bold  woodcuts  with 
which  the  work  was  embellished.    No  form  of  folly 


92        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

escaped.   Even  the  mediaeval  book-collector  is  made 
to  say :  — 

Still  am  I  busy  bookes  assemblynge, 
For  to  have  plentie  it  is  a  pleasanut  thynge, 
In  my  conceyt  and  to  have  them  ay  in  hande, 
But  what  they  mene  do  I  not  understande. 

This  is  one  of  the  books  which  can  usually  be  found 
in  a  Quaritch  catalogue,  if  it  can  be  found  anywhere. 
At  the  Hoe  sale  a  copy  brought  $1825;  but  the  aver- 
age collector  will  make  shift  to  get  along  with  an  ex- 
cellent reprint  which  was  published  in  Edinburgh 
forty  years  or  so  ago,  and  which  can  be  had  for  a  few 
shillings,  when  he  chances  to  come  across  it. 

Here  is  a  great  book !  The  first  folio  of  Shakespeare, 
the  cornerstone  of  every  great  Library.  What's  in  a 
name.'^  Did  Shakespeare  of  Stratford  write  the  plays.'' 
The  late  Dr.  Furness  declined  to  be  led  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  this  point,  wisely  remarking,  "We  have 
the  plays;  what  difference  does  it  make  who  wrote 
them.'*"  But  the  question  will  not  down.  The  latest 
theory  is  that  Bacon  wrote  the  Psalms  of  David  also, 
and  to  disguise  the  fact  tucked  in  a  cryptogram, 
another  name.  If  you  have  at  hand  a  King  James's 
version  of  the  Bible,  and  will  turn  to  the  forty-sixth 
Psalm  and  count  the  words  from  the  beginning  to  the 
forty-sixth  word,  and  will  then  count  the  words  from 
the  end  until  you  again  come  to  the  forty-sixth  word, 
you  may  learn  something  to  your  advantage. 

But,  whoever  wrote  them,  the  first  folio  —  the 
plays  collected  by  Heming  and  Condell,  and  printed 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      93 

in  1623,  at  the  charges  of  Isaac  laggard,  and  Ed. 
Blount  —  is  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest, 
volume  in  all  literature.  In  it  not  less  than  twenty 
dramas,  many  of  which  rank  among  the  literary 
masterpieces  of  the  world,  were  brought  together  for 
the  first  time.  Is  it  any  wonder,  therefore,  that  the 
first  folio  of  Shakespeare,  Shakespeare!  "not  our  poet, 
but  the  world's,"  is  so  highly  regarded.-^  The  condi- 
tion and  location  of  practically  every  copy  in  the 
world  is  known  and  recorded.  Originally  the  price  is 
supposed  to  have  been  a  guinea,  and  a  century  passed 
before  collectors  and  scholars  realized  that  it,  like  its 
author,  was  not  for  an  age,  but  for  all  time.  In  1792 
a  copy  brought  £30,  and  in  1818  "an  original  copy 
in  a  genuine  state"  changed  hands  at  £121;  but  what 
shall  be  said  of  the  price  it  fetches  to-day  .^^ 

WTien,  a  few  years  ago,  a  Philadelphia  collector 
paid  the  record  price  of  almost  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  people  unlearned  in  the  lore  of  books  ex- 
pressed amazement  that  a  book  should  bring  so  large 
a  sum;  but  he  secured  one  of  the  finest  copies  in  ex- 
istence, known  to  collectors  as  the  Locker-Lampson 
copy,  which  had  been  for  a  short  time  in  the  pos- 
session of  William  C.  Van  Antwerp,  of  New  York, 
who,  unluckily  for  himself  and  for  the  book-collecting 
world,  stopped  collecting  almost  as  soon  as  he  began. 
This  splendid  folio  has  now  found  a  permanent  rest- 
ing place  in  the  Widener  Memorial  Library  at  Har- 
vard. It  is  no  doubt  inevitable  that  these  notable 
books  should  at  last  come  to  occupy  honored  niches 


94       AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

in  great  mausoleums,  as  public  libraries  really  are, 
but  I  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  Edmond  de 
Goncourt  was  right  when  he  said  in  his  will :  — 

"My  wish  is  that  my  drawings,  my  prints,  my  curi- 
osities, my  books  —  in  a  word  these  things  of  art 
which  have  been  the  joy  of  my  life  —  shall  not  be 
consigned  to  the  cold  tomb  of  a  museum,  and  sub- 
jected to  the  stupid  glance  of  the  careless  passer-by; 
but  I  require  that  they  shall  all  be  dispersed  under 
the  hammer  of  the  auctioneer,  so  that  the  pleasure 
which  the  acquiring  of  each  one  of  them  has  given  me 
shall  be  given  again,  in  each  case,  to  some  inheritor 
of  my  own  tastes." 

I  wish  that  my  friends,  the  Pennells,  had  followed 
this  course  when  they  gave  up  their  London  apart- 
ments in  the  Adelphi  and  disposed  of  their  valuable 
Whistler  collection.  But  no,  with  characteristic  gen- 
erosity the  whole  collection  goes  to  the  nation  as 
a  gift  —  the  Library  of  Congress  at  Washington  is 
to  be  its  resting-place.  The  demand  for  Whistler  is 
ever-increasing  with  his  fame  which,  the  Pennells  say, 
will  live  forever.  Those  who  have  a  lot  of  Whistler 
material  smile  —  the  value  of  their  collections  is 
enhanced.  Those  of  us  who,  like  the  writer,  have  to 
be  content  with  two  butterflies,  or  at  most  three,  sigh 
and  turn  aside. 

Possession  is  the  grave  of  bliss.  No  sooner  do  we 
own  some  great  book  than  we  want  another.  The 
appetite  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on.  The  Shakespeare 
folio  is  a  book  for  show  and  to  be  proud  of,  but  we 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      95 

want  a  book  to  love.  Here  it  is:  Walton's  "Compleat 
Angler,"  beloved  by  gentle  men,  such  as  all  collectors 
are.  W^e  welcome  the  peace  and  contentment  which 
it  suggests,  "especially,"  as  its  author  says,  "in  such 
days  and  times  as  I  have  laid  aside  business  and  gone 
a-fishing." 

Therein  lies  the  charm  of  this  book,  for  those  of  us 
who'are  wise  enough  occasionally  to  lay  aside  business 
and  go  a-fishing  or  a-hunting,  albeit  only  book-hunt- 
ing;^ for  it  is  the  spirit  of  sport  rather  than  the  sport 
itself  that  is  important.  Old  Isaak  Walton  counted 
fishermen  as  honest  men.  I  wonder  did  he  call  them 
truthful.'*  If  so,  there  has  been  a  sad  falling  off  since 
his  day,  for  I  seem  to  remember  words  to  this  effect: 
"The  fisherman  riseth  up  early  in  the  morning  and 
disturbeth  the  whole  household.  Mighty  are  his  prep- 
arations. He  goeth  forth  full  of  hope.  Wlien  the  day 
is  far  spent,  he  returneth,  smelling  of  strong  drink,  and 
the  truth  is  not  in  him." 

I  wish  that  some  day  I  might  discover  an  "Angler," 
not  on  the  banks  of  a  stream,  but  all  unsuspected  on 
some  book-stall.  It  is  most  unlikely;  those  days  are 
past.  I  shall  never  own  a  first  "Angler."  This  little 
book  has  been  thumbed  out  of  existence  almost,  by 
generations  of  readers  with  coarse,  wet  hands  who 
carried  the  book  in  their  pockets  or  left  it  lying  by  the 
river  in  the  excitement  of  landing  a  trout.  Five  im- 
pressions, all  rare,  were  made  before  the  author  died 
in  his  "neintyeth"  year,  and  was  buried  in  the  South 
Transept  of  the  Cathedral  of  W^illiam  of  Wykeham. 


96        AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

But  Walton  wrote  of  Fishers  of  Men  as  well  as  of 
fishing.  His  lives  of  John  Donne,  the  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's;  of  Richard  Hooker,  the  "Judicious,"  as  he  is 
usually  called,  when  called  at  all;  of  George  Herbert, 
and  several  other  men,  honorable  in  their  generation, 
are  quaint  and  charming.  These  lives,  published  orig- 
inally at  intervals  of  many  years,  are  not  rare,  nor  is 
the  volume  of  1670,  the  first  collected  edition  of  the 
Lives,  unless  it  is  a  presentation  copy.  Such  a  copy 
sold  twenty  years  ago  for  fifteen  pounds.  Some  years 
ago  I  paid  just  three  times  this  sum  for  a  copy  in- 
scribed by  Walton  to  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Oxford.  I 
did  not  then  know  that  the  Bishop  of  Oxford  was 
also  the  famous  Dr.  John  Fell,  the  hero  of  the  well- 
known  epigram:  — 

I  do  not  like  you  Dr.  Fell, 
The  reason  why  I  cannot  tell; 
But  this  I  know  and  know  full  well, 
I  do  not  like  you  Dr.  Fell,  — 

or  I  would  willingly  have  paid  more  for  it. 

But  I  am  wandering  from  my  text.  To  return  to  the 
"Angler."  Fifty  pounds  was  a  fair  price  for  a  fine  copy 
fifty  years  ago.  George  D.  Smith  sold  a  copy  a  few 
weeks  since  for  five  thousand  dollars,  and  the  Heck- 
scher  copy  a  few  years  ago  brought  thirty-nine  hun- 
dred dollars;  but  the  record  price  appears  to  have  been 
paid  for  the  Van  Antwerp  copy,  which  is  generally 
believed  to  be  the  finest  in  existence.  It  is  bound  in 
original  sheepskin,  and  was  formerly  in  the  library  of 
Frederick  Locker-Lampson.    It  was  sold  in  London 


THE 

TEMPLE. 

SACRED  POEMS 

AND 

PRIVATE  EJA- 

CULATIONS. 


ByMr.  Georoe  Herbert. 


PSAI.     2p. 

/;?  ^/s  Temple  doth  every 
man  [peak  of  his  honour » 


^ 


•©fis 


2^1 


CAMBRIDGE: 

Printed  by  Thorn,  Buck, 

and  iJt'^cr  2?(jnic/,  printers 

to  the  Univerutie. 

i<5  3  5. 


The  rare  first  edition,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Livingston 
in  "  The  Bibliophile,"  the  earlier  issue  of  the  two  printed 
in  that  year.  A  very  large  copy.  From  the  Hagen  collec- 
tion. Said  to  be  the  finest  copy  in  existence.  It  is  bound 
in  contemporary  vellum,  and  measures  3i  X  6J  inches. 


98       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

some  ten  years  ago  and  was  purchased  by  Quaritch 
for  "an  American,"  which  was  a  sort  of  nom  de  guerre 
of  the  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  for  £1290. 

When  "Anglers*'  could  be  had  for  fifty  pounds, 
"Vicars"  brought  ten,  or  fifteen  if  in  exceptionally 
fine  condition,  and  the  man  who  then  spent  this  sum 
for  a  "Vicar"  chose  as  wisely  as  did  the  Vicar's  wife 
her  wedding  gown,  "not  for  a  fine  glossy  surface,  but 
for  qualities  as  would  wear  well."  These  two  little 
volumes,  with  the  Salisbury  imprint  and  a  required 
blunder  or  two,  will  soon  be  worth  a  thousand  dollars. 
When  I  paid  £120  for  mine  some  years  ago,  I  felt  that 
I  was  courting  ruin,  especially  when  I  recalled  that 
Dr.  Johnson  thought  rather  well  of  himself  for  having 
secured  for  Goldsmith  just  half  this  sum  for  the  copy- 
right of  it.  Boswell's  story  of  the  sale  of  the  manu- 
script of  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  as  Johnson  related 
it  to  him,  is  as  pretty  a  bit  of  bibliographical  history 
as  we  have.  Those  who  know  it  will  pardon  the  in- 
trusion of  the  story  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  it  may 
give  others. 

"I  received,"  said  Johnson,  "one  morning  a  mes- 
sage from  poor  Goldsmith  that  he  was  in  great  dis- 
tress, and  as  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  come  to  me, 
begged  that  I  would  come  to  him  as  soon  as  possible. 
I  sent  him  a  guinea,  and  promised  to  come  to  him 
directly.  I  accordingly  went  as  soon  as  I  was  drest, 
and  found  that  his  landlady  had  arrested  him  for  his 
rent,  at  which  he  was  in  a  violent  passion.  I  perceived 
that  he  had  already  changed  my  guinea,  and  had  got 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES      99 

a  bottle  of  Madeira  and  a  glass  before  him.  I  put  the 
cork  into  the  bottle,  desired  he  would  be  calm,  and 
began  to  talk  to  him  of  the  means  by  which  he  might 
be  extricated.  He  then  told  me  that  he  had  a  novel 
ready  for  the  press,  which  he  produced  to  me.  I 
looked  into  it  and  saw  its  merit;  told  the  landlady  I 
should  soon  return,  and  having  gone  to  a  bookseller, 
sold  it  for  sixty  pounds.  I  brought  Goldsmith  the 
money,  and  he  discharged  his  rent,  not  without  rating 
his  landlady  in  a  high  tone  for  having  used  him  so 
ill  .  .  .  and  Sir,"  continued  Johnson,  "it  was  a  suf- 
ficient price,  too,  when  it  was  sold;  for  then  the  fame 
of  Goldsmith  had  not  been  elevated,  as  it  afterwards 
was  by  his  'Traveller';  and  the  bookseller  had  such 
faint  hopes  of  profit  by  his  bargain,  that  he  kept  the 
manuscript  by  him  a  long  time,  and  did  not  publish 
it  till  after  'The  Traveller'  had  appeared.  Then,  to 
be  sure,  it  was  accidentally  worth  more  money." 

Here  we  have  a  characteristic  sketch  of  the  two 
men  —  the  excitable,  amiable,  and  improvident  Goldy , 
and  the  wise  and  kindly  Johnson,  instantly  corking 
the  bottle  and  getting  down  to  brass  tacks,  as  we 
should  say. 

The  first  edition  of  "Robinson  Crusoe"  is  another 
favorite  book  with  collectors;  as  why  should  it  not 
be.^  Here  is  a  copy  in  two  volumes  (there  should  be 
three)  in  red  morocco,  super  extra,  gilt  edges,  by 
Bedford.  It  should  be  in  contemporary  calf,  but  the 
price  was  only  £46.  Turning  to  a  bookseller's  cata- 
logue published  a  year  or  two  ago,  there  is  a  copy 


100      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

"3  vols.  8vo.  with  map  and  2  plates,  in  original  calf 
binding,"  and  the  price  is  twenty-five  hundred  dollars. 
A  note  in  one  of  Stan.  Henkel's  recent  auction 
catalogues,  and  there  are  none  better,  clears  up  a 
point  which  has  always  troubled  me,  and  which  I 
will  quote  at  length  for  the  benefit  of  other  collectors 
who  may  not  have  seen  it. 

The  supposed  "points,"  signifying  the  first  issues  of  this 
famous  book,  are  stumbling-blocks  to  all  bibliographers. 

Professor  W.  P.  Trent,  of  Columbia  University,  un- 
doubtedly the  foremost  authority  on  Defoe,  after  ex- 
tended research  and  the  comparison  of  many  copies, 
states  that  he  is  of  the  opinion  that  any  purchaser  enter- 
ing Taylor's  shop  at  the  sign  of  the  Ship,  in  Pater  Noster 
Row  on  April  25th,  1719  (usually  taken  as  the  date  of 
issue),  might  have  been  handed  a  copy  falling  under  any 
of  the  following  categories :  — 

With  "apply"  in  the  preface,  and  "Pilot,"  on  page  343, 
line  2. 

With  "apply"  in  the  preface,  and  "Pilate"  on  page  343. 

With  "apyly  "  in  the  preface,  and  "Pilate"  on  page  343. 

With  "apyly"  in  the  preface,  and  "Pilot"  on  page  343. 

It  is  unquestionably  wrong,  in  his  opinion,  to  call  any 
one  of  these  "first  issue."  Prof.  Trent  sees  no  reason  to 
believe  that  there  was  a  re-issue  with  "apyly"  corrected 
in  the  preface.  Both  these  mistakes  were  quite  probably 
corrected  while  the  sheets  were  passing  through  the  press, 
and  it  depends  on  how  the  sheets  were  collated  by  the 
binder  what  category  of  the  four  given  any  special  copy 
belongs  to. 

This  is  a  great  relief  to  me,  as  my  copy,  which  was 
once  Congreve's,  while  leaving  nothing  to  be  desired 
in  the  matter  of  condition,  binding,  and  plates,  has 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES    101 

the  word  "apply"  in  the  preface  and  "pilot"  on  page 
343;  but  it  is  perfectly  clear,  having  in  mind  the 
spacing  of  the  types,  that  the  longer  word  has  given 
way  to  the  shorter. 

There  is,  however,  another  edition  of  "Robinson 
Crusoe"  which,  for  rarity,  puts  all  first  editions  in 
the  shade.  So  immediate  was  the  success  of  this  won- 
derful romance  that  it  was  issued  in  a  newspaper, 
very  much  as  popular  novels  are  now  run.  It  was 
published  in  the  "Original  London  Post,"  or  "Heath- 
cot's  Intelligence,"  numbers  from  125  to  289,  Octo- 
ber 7,  1719,  to  October  19, 1720.  This  was  publica- 
tion in  parts  with  a  vengeance.  Of  the  entire  series  of 
165  leaves,  only  one  is  in  facsimile.  I  see  that  I  have 
not  yet  said  that  I  own  this  copy.  There  is  a  copy  in 
the  British  Museum,  but  I  am  told  that  it  is  very 
imperfect,  and  I  know  of  no  other. 

I  was,  a  few  evenings  ago,  looking  over  Arnold's 
"First  Report  of  a  Book-Collector."  I  had  just  given 
an  old-time  year's  salary  for  a  manuscript  poem  by 
Keats,  and  I  was  utterly  bewildered  by  reading  this: 
"Only  a  few  months  after  I  began  collecting,  more 
than  one  hundred  pages  of  original  manuscripts  of 
Keats  that  were  just  then  offered  for  sale  came  in  my 
way  and  were  secured  at  one-fifth  of  their  value."  If 
the  price  I  paid  for  one  page  is  any  criterion  as  to  the 
value  of  one  hundred  pages,  Mr.  Arnold  is  by  now 
a  very  rich  man;  and  elsewhere  in  his  "Report"  he 
gives  a  list  of  books  sold  at  Sotheby's  in  1896  at  prices 
which  make  one's  mouth  water. 


102      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Chapman's  Homer,  1616,  £15; 
Chaucer's  Works,  1542,  £15  10; 
"Robinson  Crusoe,"  1719-20,  £75; 
Goldsmith's  "Vicar,"  1766,  £65; 
Goldsmith's  "Deserted  Village,"  1770,  £25; 
Herrick's  "Hesperides,"  1648,  £38. 
Milton's  "Paradise  Lost,"  1667,  £90. 

But  why  continue.'^  The  point  of  it  all  is  his  com- 
ment: "If  the  beginner  is  alarmed  by  these  prices, 
let  him  remember  that  such  are  paid  only  for  well- 
known  and  highly  prized  rarities";  and  remember, 
too,  that  this  is  the  comment  of  an  astute  collector 
upon  the  prices  of  only  twenty  years  ago. 

It  is,  however,  only  proper  to  bear  in  mind,  when 
referring  to  English  auction  prices,  that  the  "knock- 
out" may  have  been,  and  probably  was,  in  operation. 
This  time-honored  and  beneficent  custom  results  in 
enriching  the  London  book-dealer  at  the  expense  of 
the  owner  or  the  estate  whose  books  are  being  sold. 
The  existence  of  the  "knockout"  is  pretty  generally 
admitted  by  the  London  dealers,  but  they  usually 
couple  the  admission  with  the  statement  that  no  re- 
putable dealer  will  have  anything  to  do  with  its 
operations.  It  is  always  the  other  fellow  who  is  in 
the  ring.  Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms,  a  "knock- 
out" consists  of  a  clique  of  men  who  agree  that  cer- 
tain books  (or  anything  else)  shall  be  bought  at  auc- 
tion without  competition.  One  book,  or  class  of  books, 
shall  be  bought  by  A,  B  will  buy  another,  C  another, 
and  so  on.  At  some  convenient  time  or  place  after 
the  books  have  been  delivered,  a  second  auction  is 


iTr^fSrl 


I  \i 


Fre '-.eft  Aclvices  loreign  and  Pomeftick. 


•.   t.'.ielJiv  OLlubtr 


1-19. 


of  )'ch\^--  (.rii'cc  -\   Tar,  Ms- 


'  Vi.  r'  wi^hv^dtifih.  .nd  Twety  Years  alorc   u,  anuni.^- 
r  :    in„.)  oi   the    Ccjil  of  .-Ir-^'.-'.   nearthcM.u.bof  ths 

,      >     a'i  cr"     ca-.  ••■       hsw'H't'^fn   <^'^  f"  Shore  In  Si..;.- 


/^:c:■■J.:^    h 
Wrlujr.by  lilrr.'c'.i 


The  PREFACE. 

^M'iS    .  ^ '     ■ 


rJ  : 


;  -'^rh,  -viva/  J^rr'.-K   r:,~:»::KrU  I'-'t  ?' -r.  :.  i"  r. 


re.: 


OLD  CATALOGUES  AND  NEW  PRICES    103 

held  and  they  are  again  put  up.  This  time  there  is 
real  competition,  but  the  profits  go  into  a  pool  which 
is  equally  divided  among  the  members.  This  custom 
has  taken  such  a  strong  hold  on  the  trade  that  it 
seems  impossible  to  break  it  up.  Should  a  private  per- 
son bid  at  a  sale  at  which  the  scheme  is  intended  to 
operate,  he  would  get,  either  nothing,  or  books  at 
such  a  price  as  would  cause  him  to  remember  the  sale 
to  his  dying  day.  There  is  nothing  analogous  to  it  in 
this  country,  and  it  was  to  escape  from  its  operations 
that  it  was  decided  to  sell  the  great  Hoe  collection  at 
Anderson's  in  New  York  City  a  few  years  ago. 

Most  of  the  books  then  sold  realized  the  highest 
prices  ever  known.  Many  of  the  London  dealers  were 
represented,  —  Quaritch,  Maggs,  and  several  others 
came  in  person,  —  and  the  sale  will  long  be  remem- 
bered in  the  annals  of  the  trade. 

After  the  above  explanation  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  say  that  "Book  Auction  Records,"  published  by 
Karslake  in  London,  has  no  value  whatever  as  a 
guide  to  prices,  in  comparison  with  "American  Book 
Prices  Current,"  to  the  compilation  of  which  the  late 
Luther  S.  Livingston  devoted  so  much  of  his  time  — 
time  which  we  now  know  should  have  been  spent  in 
doing  original  work  in  bibliography. 

Returning  for  a  moment  to  Mr.  Arnold  and  his  con- 
tributions to  bibliography,  he  did  the  booksellers  a 
good  turn  and  helped  collectors  justify  their  extrav- 
agance to  their  wives  by  publishing  some  years  ago 
"A  Record  of  Books  and  Letters."   Mr.  Arnold  de- 


104      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

voted  the  leisure  of  six  years  to  forming  a  collection 
of  books  with  perseverance  and  intelligence;  then  he 
suddenly  stopped  and  turned  over  to  Bangs  &  Com- 
pany, the  auctioneers,  the  greater  part  of  his  collec- 
tion, and  awaited  the  result  with  interest.  I  say  "with 
interest"  advisedly,  for  the  result  fully  justified  his 
judgment.  In  his  "Record"  he  gives  the  date  of  ac- 
quisition, together  with  the  cost  of  each  item,  in  one 
column,  and  in  another  the  selling  price.  He  also 
states  whether  the  item  was  bought  of  a  bookseller 
or  a  collector,  or  at  auction.  He  had  spent  a  trifle  over 
ten  thousand  dollars,  and  his  profit  almost  exactly 
equalled  his  outlay.  I  said  his  profit,  but  I  have  used 
the  wrong  word.  His  profit  was  the  pleasure  he  re- 
ceived in  discovering,  buying,  and  owning  the  treas- 
ures which  for  a  time  were  in  his  possession.  The  dif- 
ference in  actual  money  between  what  he  paid  and 
what  he  received,  some  ten  thousand  dollars,  was  the 
reward  for  his  industry  and  courage  in  pajdng  what 
doubtless  many  people  supposed  to  be  extravagant 
prices  for  his  books. 

Let  us  examine  one  only.  It  is  certainly  not  a  fair 
example,  but  it  happens  to  interest  me.  He  had  a 
copy  of  Keats's  "Poems,"  1817,  with  an  inscription 
in  the  poet's  handwriting:  "My  dear  Giovanni,  I 
hope  your  eyes  will  soon  be  well  enough  to  read  this 
with  pleasure  and  ease."  There  were  some  other 
inscriptions  in  Keats's  hand,  and  for  this  treasure 
Arnold  paid  a  bookseller,  in  1895,  seventy-one  dollars. 
At  the  auction  in  1901  it  brought  five  hundred  dollars, 


it/UaJ^  i^'MA.'X  uhUjUj  WL  ufO^CUU  A  vVo/u-uo  o /JAvt^  t, 

ihtiC  tf^-\*   hf^clui'  4uJi^eU  4A^  t.djLaJ  J  till  I  »o  t^^uAXjt,  ■ 

du'  'i/^  ^^  lt>-^  sajji^  j^  ^ ^  to^du^<\ 

'Arr  u-'^dwif^^U  0.  iu>uJ^OJu*~d.  {kxjujJ-*-"^^  (/JJUxtuM^x^^     , 


106      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  it  subsequently  passed  into  the  Van  Antwerp  col- 
lection, finally  going  back  to  London,  where  it  was 
sold  in  1907  for  ninety  pounds,  being  bought  by 
Quaritch.  Finally  it  passed  into  the  possession  of  the 
late  W.  H.  Hagen  and,  at  the  sale  of  his  library,  in  May, 
1918,  was  knocked  down  to  "G.D.S."  for  $1950. 
From  him  I  tried  to  secure  it,  but  was  "too  late."^ 
My  copy  of  the  Poems  has,  alas,  no  inscription, 
but  it  cost  me  in  excess  of  five  hundred  dollars;  and 
a  well-known  collector  has  just  paid  Rosenbach 
nine  thousand  dollars  for  Keats's  three  slender  vol- 
umes, each  with  inscriptions  in  the  poet's  hand. 
Three  into  nine  is  a  simple  problem:  even  I  can  do 
it;  but  the  volume  of  "Poems"  is  much  rarer  than 
"Endymion"  or  "Lamia." 

*  The  facsimile  on  page  105  is  from  the  original  manuscript  of  John 
Keats's  "To  some  Ladies,"  published  in  Keats's  first  volume  (1817). 
The  ladies  were  the  sisters  of  George  Felton  Mathew,  to  whom  Keats 
also  addressed  a  poem.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  second  verse 
he  used  the  word  "gushes"  at  the  end  of  the  third  as  well  as  the  first 
line.  This  error  does  not  occur  in  the  printed  text.  On  the  other  hand 
the  MS.  shows  a  correction  which  has  never  been  made  in  the  printed 
text,  where  the  word  "  rove  "  is  corrected  to  "  muse."  There  is  an 
interesting  communication  in  the  Athenajum,  April  16,  1904,  by 
H.  Buxton  Forman,  anent  this  holograph. 


^ 


IV 

"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  AND  FIRST  EDITIONS 

No  books  have  appreciated  more  in  value  than  pres- 
entation or  association  volumes,  and  the  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  Of  any  given  copy  there  can  hardly  be 
a  duplicate.  For  the  most  part  presentation  copies 
are  first  editions  —  plus.  Frequently  there  is  a  note 
or  a  comment  which  sheds  biographical  light  on  the 
author.  In  the  slightest  inscription  there  is  the  rec- 
ord of  a  friendship  by  means  of  which  we  get  back  of 
the  book  to  the  writer.  And  speaking  of  association 
books,  every  one  will  remember  the  story  that  Gen- 
eral Wolfe,  in  an  open  boat  on  the  St.  Lawrence  as  he 
was  being  rowed  down  the  stream  to  a  point  just  be- 
low Quebec,  recited  the  lines  from  Gray's  "Elegy,"  — 

"The  boast  of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  pow'r. 

And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth,  e'er  gave 
Await  alike  the  inevitable  hour. 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave,"  — 

adding,  "I  would  rather  be  the  author  of  that  piece 
than  have  the  honor  of  beating  the  French  to-mor- 
row." \Mien  Wolfe  left  England  he  carried  with  him 
a  copy  of  the  "Elegy,"  the  gift  of  his  fiancee.  Miss 
Katherine  Lowther.  He  learned  the  poem  by  heart, 
he  underscored  his  favorite  lines,  among  them  the 
passage  quoted;  he  filled  the  book  with  his  notes. 


108      AINIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

After  his  death  the  book  and  a  miniature  of  the  lady 
were  returned  to  her,  and  only  a  few  days  ago  this 
book,  a  priceless  volume  of  unique  association  interest, 
was  offered  for  sale.  The  first  man  who  saw  it  bought 
it.  He  had  never  bought  a  fine  book  before,  but  he 
could  not  resist  this  one.  When  I  heard  of  the  trans- 
action I  was  grieved  and  delighted  —  grieved  that 
so  wonderful  a  volume  had  escaped  me,  delighted  that 
I  had  not  been  subjected  to  so  terrible  a  temptation. 
WTiat  was  the  price  of  it?  Only  the  seller  and  the  buyer 
know,  but  I  fancy  some  gilt-edged  securities  had  to  be 
parted  with. 

How  the  prices  of  these  books  go  a-soaring  is  shown 
by  the  continuous  advance  in  the  price  of  a  copy  of 
Shelley's  "Queen  Mab."  It  is  a  notable  copy,  re- 
ferred to  in  Dowden's  "Life  of  Shelley."  On  the  fly 
leaf  is  an  inscription  in  Shelley's  hand,  "Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft  Godwin,  from  P.B.S. ";  inside  of  the  back 
cover  Shelley  has  written  in  pencil,  "You  see,  Mary, 
I  have  not  forgotten  you";  and  elsewhere  in  the  book 
in  Mary's  hand,  we  read,  "This  book  is  sacred  to  me, 
and  as  no  other  creature  shall  ever  look  into  it,  I  may 
write  in  it  what  I  please.  Yet  what  shall  I  write.'*  That 
I  love  the  author  beyond  all  powers  of  expression  and 
that  I  am  parted  from  him";  and  much  more  to  the 
same  effect.  At  the  Ives  sale  in  1891  this  volume  of 
supreme  interest  brought  $190;  in  1897,  at  the  Fred- 
erickson  sale,  it  brought  $615;  and  a  year  ago  a 
dealer  sold  it  for  $7500;  and  cheap  at  that,  I  say, 
for  where  will  you  find  another.'^ 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  109 

I  have  before  me  a  copy  of  Stevenson's  "Inland 
Voyage."  Pamphlets  aside,  which,  by  reason  of  their 
manner  of  publication,  are  now  rare,  it  may  be  said  to 
be  the  author's  first  book.  It  has  an  inscription,  "My 
dear  Cummy:  If  you  had  not  taken  so  much  trouble 
with  me  all  the  days  of  my  childhood,  this  little  book 
would  never  have  been  written.   Many  a  long  night 

you  sat  up  with  me  when  I  was  ill ;  I  wish  I  could  hope 
by  way  of  return  to  amuse  a  single  evening  for  you 
with  my  little  book!  But  whatever  you  may  think  of 
it,  I  know  you  will  continue  to  think  kindly  of  the 
Author."  I  thought,  when  I  gave  four  hundred  dol- 
lars for  it,  that  I  was  paying  a  fabulous  price;  but  as  I 
have  since  been  offered  twice  that  sum,  Rosenbach 
evidently  let  me  have  a  bargain.  He  tells  me  that  it 
is  good  business  sometimes  to  sell  a  book  for  less  than 
it  is  worth.  He  regards  it  as  bait.  He  angles  for  you 
very  skilfully,  does  Rosy,  and  lands  you  —  me  — 
every  time. 

"A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses"  is  another  book 
which  has  doubled  in  value  two  or  three  times  in  the 


110      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

last  few  years.  Gabriel  Wells  is  now  offering  a  copy, 
with  a  brief  inscription,  for  three  hundred  dollars,  hav- 
ing sold  me  not  long  ago,  for  twice  this  sum,  a  copy  in 
which  Stevenson's  writing  is  mingled  with  the  type 
of  the  title-page  so  that  it  reads :  — 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

his  copy  of 

A  Child's  Garden  of 

Verses 

and  if  it  is  [in]  the  hands  of  any  one 

else,  explain  it  who  can ! 

but  not  by  the  gift  of 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson 

'  That  Stevenson  afterward  changed  his  mind  and 
gave  it  to  "E.  F.  Russell,  with  hearty  good  will,"  is 
shown  by  another  inscription.  This  copy  was  pur- 
chased at  the  sale  for  the  British  Red  Cross  in  Lon- 
don, shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  It  may  be 
some  time  before  it  is  worth  what  I  paid  for  it,  or  the 
price  may  look  cheap  to-morrow  —  who  shall  say? 

Watching  the  quotations  of  the  first  editions  of 
Stevenson  is  rather  like  looking  at  the  quotations 
of  stocks  you  have  n't  got,  as  they  recover  from  a 
panic.  A  point  or  two  a  day  is  added  to  their  prices; 
but  Stevenson's  move  five  or  ten  points  at  a  time,  and 
there  has  been  no  reaction  —  as  yet.  Only  a  year  or 
two  ago  I  paid  Drake  fifty  dollars  for  a  copy  of  "The 
New  Arabian  Nights";  and  a  few  days  ago  I  saw  in 
the  papers  that  a  copy  had  just  been  sold  for  fifty 
pounds  in  a  London  auction  room.^ 

*  In  Walter  Hill's  recent  catalogue  a  copy  is  priced  at  $3d0. 


A   CHILD'S    GARDEN 


OF    VERSES 
ROBERT    LOUIS    STEVENSON 


LONDON 
LONGMANS,     GREENLAND     CO. 

iSSs 


A//    ri/:hts    rcttrvt'i 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  111 

I  cannot  quite  understand  Stevenson's  immense 
vogue.  Perhaps  it  is  the  rare  personality  of  the  man. 
Try  as  we  may,  it  is  impossible  to  separate  the  per- 
sonality of  a  man  from  his  work.  WTiy  is  one  author 
"collected"  and  another  not .^  I  do  not  know.  Prac- 
tically no  one  collects  Scott,  or  George  Eliot,  or 
TroUope;  but  Trollope  collectors  there  will  be,  and 
"The  Macdermots  of  Ballycloran"  and  "The  Kellys 
and  the  O'Kellys"  will  bring  fabulous  prices  some  of 
these  days  —  five  hundred  dollars  each;  more,  a 
thousand,  I  should  say;  and  w^hen  you  pay  this  sum, 
look  well  for  the  errors  in  pagination  and  see  that 
Mortimer  Street  is  spelt  Morimer  on  the  title-page 
of  volume  three  of  the  former.  And  remember,  too, 
that  this  book  is  so  rare  that  there  is  no  copy  of  it  in 
the  British  Museum  —  at  least  so  I  am  told;  but  you 
will  find  one  on  my  shelves,  in  the  corner  over  there, 
together  with  everything  else  this  great  Victorian 
has  written  —  of  all  novelists  my  favorite.  Trollope 
proved  the  correctness  of  Johnson's  remark,  "A  man 
may  write  at  any  time  if  he  will  set  himself  doggedly 
at  it."  This  we  know  Trollope  did,  we  have  his  word 
for  it.  His  personality  was  too  sane,  too  matter  of 
fact,  to  be  attractive;  but  his  books  are  delightful. 
One  does  n't  read  Trollope  as  Coleridge  did  Shake- 
speare —  by  flashes  of  lighting  (this  is  n't  right,  but  it 
expresses  the  idea) ;  but  there  is  a  good,  steady  glow 
emanating  from  the  author  himself,  which,  once  you 
get  accustomed  to  it,  will  enable  you  to  see  a  whole 
group  of  mid-Victorian  characters  so  perfectly  that 


112      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

you  come  to  know  them  as  well  as  the  members  of 
your  own  family,  and,  I  sometimes  think,  understand 
them  better. 

But  for  one  collector  who  expresses  a  mild  interest 
in  Trollope,  there  are  a  thousand  who  regard  the 
brave  invalid,  who,  little  more  than  twenty  years 
ago,  passed  away  on  that  lonely  Samoan  island  in  the 
Pacific,  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  moderns,  as  cer- 
tain of  immortality  as  Charles  Lamb.  They  may  be 
right.    His  little  toy  books  and  leaflets,  those  which 

The  author  and  the  printer 
With  various  kinds  of  skill 
Concocted  in  the  Winter 
At  Davos  on  the  Hill, 

and  elsewhere,  are  simply  invaluable.  The  author 
and  the  printer  were  one  and  the  same  —  R.  L.  S.,  as- 
sisted, or  perhaps  hindered,  by  S.  L.  O.,  Mrs.  Steven- 
son's son,  then  a  lad.  Of  these  Stevensons,  "Penny 
Whistles"  is  the  rarest.  But  two  copies  are  known. 
One  is  in  a  private  collection  in  England;  the  other 
was  bought  at  the  Borden  sale  in  1913  by  Mrs. 
Widener,  for  twenty-five  hundred  dollars,  in  order  to 
complete,  as  far  as  might  be,  the  Stevenson  collection 
now  in  the  Widener  Memorial  Library.  It  was  a 
privately  printed  forerunner  of  "A  Child's  Garden 
of  Verses,"  published  several  years  later. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  these  bijoux  to  Stevenson's 
regularly  published  volumes;  but  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  these  latter  were  printed  in  fairly  large 
editions  and  relatively  only  a  few  years  ago,  it  will  be 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  113 

seen  that  no  other  author  of  yesterday  fetches  such 
high  prices  as  Stevenson. 

In  recent  years  there  have  been  published  a  num- 
ber of  bibHographies  without  which  no  collector  can 
be  expected  to  keep  house.  We  are  indebted  to  the 
Grolier  Club  for  some  of  the  best  of  these.  Its  mem- 
bers have  the  books  and  are  most  generous  in  exhibit- 
ing them,  and  it  must  indeed  be  a  churlish  scholar 
who  cannot  freely  secure  access  to  the  collections  of 
its  members. 

Aside  from  the  three  volumes  entitled  "Contribu- 
tions to  English  Bibliography,"  published  and  sold 
by  the  Club,  the  handbooks  of  the  exhibitions  held 
from  time  to  time  are  much  sought,  for  the  wealth 
of  information  they  contain.  The  Club's  librarian. 
Miss  Ruth  S.  Granniss,  working  in  cooperation  with 
the  members,  is  largely  responsible  for  the  skill  and 
intelligence  with  which  these  little  catalogues  are 
compiled.  The  time  and  amount  of  painstaking  re- 
search which  enter  into  the  making  of  them  is  sim- 
ply enormous.  Indeed,  no  one  quite  understands  the 
many  questions  which  arise  to  vex  the  bibliographer 
unless  they  have  attempted  to  make  for  themselves 
even  the  simplest  form  of  catalogue.  Over  the  door 
of  the  room  in  which  they  work  should  be  inscribed 
the  text,  "Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out."  Some 
blunders  are  redeemed  by  the  laughter  they  arouse. 
Here  is  a  famous  one :  — 

Shelley  —  Prometheus  —  unbound,  etc. 

"      —  Prometheus  —  bound  in  olive  morocco,  etc. 


114      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

But  for  the  most  part  the  lot  of  the  bibliographer, 
as  Dr.  Johnson  said  of  the  dictionary-maker,  is  to 
be  exposed  to  censure  without  hope  of  praise. 

That  Oscar  Wilde  continues  to  interest  the  col- 
lector is  proved,  if  proof  were  necessary,  by  the  splen- 
did bibliography  by  Stuart  Mason,  in  two  large  vol- 
umes. Its  editor  tells  us  that  it  was  the  work  of  ten 
years,  which  I  can  readily  believe;  and  Robert  Ross, 
Wilde's  literary  executor,  says  in  the  introduction, 
that,  in  turning  over  the  proof  for  ten  minutes,  he 
learned  more  about  Wilde's  writings  than  Wilde  him- 
self ever  knew.  It  gave  me  some  pleasure,  when  I 
first  took  the  book  up,  to  see  that  Mason  had  used 
for  his  frontispiece  the  caricature  of  Wilde  by  Aubrey 
Beardsley,  the  original  of  which  now  hangs  on  the 
wall  near  my  writing-table,  together  with  a  letter 
from  Ross  in  which  he  says,  "From  a  technical  point 
of  view  this  drawing  is  interesting  as  showing  the 
artistic  development  of  what  afterwards  was  called 
his  Japanese  method  in  the  'Salome'  drawings. 
Here  it  is  only  in  embryo,  but  this  is  the  earliest  draw- 
ing I  remember  in  which  the  use  of  dotted  lines,  a 
peculiarity  of  Beardsley,  can  be  traced."  ^ 

Another  favorite  bibliography  is  that  of  Dickens, 
by  John  C.  Eckel.  His  "  First  Editions  of  Charles 
Dickens"  is  a  book  which  no  lover  of  Dickens  —  and 
who  is  not?  —  can  do  without.  It  is  a  book  to  be  read, 
as  well  as  a  book  of  reference.  In  it  Mr.  Eckel  does 
one  thing,  however,  which  is,  from  its  very  nature, 

»  See  infra,  page  319. 


— ^^  1-;t" 


THK  NEW  BTILmNG  OK  THE  GROLIER  CLTI? 
17  EAST  SIXTIETH  ST.,  NEW  VOItK 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  115 

hopeless  and  discouraging.  He  attempts  to  indicate 
the  prices  at  which  first  editions  of  his  favorite  author 
can  be  secured  at  auction,  or  from  the  dealers  in  Lon- 
don and  this  country.  Alas,  alas!  while  waiting  to  se- 
cure prizes  at  Eckel's  prices  I  have  seen  them  soar- 
ing to  figures  undreamed  of  a  few  years  ago.  In  his 
chapter  on  "Presentation  Copies,"  he  refers  to  a  copy 
of  "Bleak  House"  given  by  Dickens  to  Dudley  Cos- 
tello.  "Some  years  ago," he  says,  "it  sold  for  $150.00. 
Eighteen  months  later  the  collector  resold  the  book  to 
the  dealer  for  $380.00,  who  made  a  quick  turn  and 
sold  the  book  for  ten  per  cent  advance,  or  $418.00." 
These  figures  Mr.  Eckel  considers  astonishing.  I  now 
own  the  book,  but  it  came  into  my  possession  at  a 
figure  considerably  in  excess  of  that  named. 

A  copy  of  "American  Notes,"  with  an  inscription, 
"Thomas  Carlyle  from  Charles  Dickens,  Nineteenth 
October,  1842,"  gives  an  excellent  idea  of  the  rise  in 
the  price  of  a  book,  interesting  itself  and  on  account 
of  its  inscription.  At  auction,  in  London,  in  1902,  it 
sold  for  £45.  After  passing  through  the  hands  of  sev- 
eral dealers  it  was  purchased  by  W.  E.  Allis,  of  Mil- 
waukee; and  at  the  sale  of  his  books  in  New  York,  in 
1912,  it  was  bought  by  George  D.  Smith  for  $1050. 
Smith  passed  the  book  on  to  Edwin  W.  Coggeshall; 
but  its  history  is  not  yet  at  an  end,  for  at  his  sale,  on 
April  25,  1916,  it  was  bought  by  the  firm  of  Dutton 
for  $1850,  and  by  them  passed  on,  the  story  goes,  to 
a  discriminating  collector  in  Detroit,  a  man  who  can 
call  all  the  parts  of  an  automobile  by  name.   For- 


116      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

tunately,  while  this  book  was  in  full  flight,  I  secured 
a  copy  with  an  inscription,  "W.  C.  Macready  from 
his  friend  Charles  Dickens,  Eighteenth  October, 
1842."  Now,  what  is  my  copy  worth? 

Seven  years  ago  I  paid  Charles  Sessler  nine  hun- 
dred dollars  for  three  books:  a  presentation  "Carol,'* 
to  Tom  Beard,  a  "Cricket,"  to  Macready,  and  a 
"Haunted  Man,"  to  Maclise.  At  the  Coggeshall  sale 
a  dealer  paid  a  thousand  dollars  for  a  "Carol,"  while 


^. 


'Zu^Jl^iAA^^ipnf^^, 


I  gave  Smith  ten  per  cent  advance  on  a  thousand  dol- 
lars for  a  "Chimes,"  with  an  inscription,  "Charles 
Dickens,  Junior,  from  his  affectionate  father,  Charles 
Dickens."  This  copy  at  the  Allis  sale  had  brought 
seven  hundred  and  seventy -five  dollars,  at  which  time 
I  was  prepared  to  pay  five  hundred  dollars  for  it. 


\X  ILLUSTKATIOX,  "THK  LAST  OF  THK  SI'IKITS,"  I'.Y  JOHN   I.K'XH. 
FOR  DICKENS'S  "CHRISTMAS  CAROL   ' 

fnim  the  vrirjinul  ir„tfi-color  ilraicinn 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  117 

I  always  return  from  these  all-star  performances 
depressed  in  spirit  and  shattered  in  pocket.  "\Miere 
will  it  stop?  "  I  say  to  myself.  "  When  will  you  stop.'' " 
my  wife  says  to  me.  And  both  questions  remain  un- 
answered; certainly  not,  while  presentation  Dickenses 
can  be  had  and  are  lacking  from  my  collection.  I  now 
possess  twenty-one,  and  it  is  with  presentation  Dick- 
enses as  with  elephants  —  a  good  many  go  to  the 
dozen;  but  I  lack  and  sadly  want  —  Shall  I  give  a 
list?  No,  the  prices  are  going  up  fast  enough  without 
stimulation  from  me.  Wait  until  my  "wants"  are 
complete;  then  let  joy  be  unconfined. 

A  final  word  on  Dickens:  the  prices  are  skyrocket- 
ing because  everyone  loves  him.  Age  cannot  wither 
nor  custom  stale  his  infinite  variety.  As  a  great  crea- 
tive genius  he  ranks  with  Shakespeare.  He  has  given 
pleasure  to  millions;  he  has  been  translated  into  all  the 
languages  of  Europe.  "Pickwick,"  it  is  said,  stands 
fourth  in  circulation  among  English  printed  books, 
being  exceeded  only  by  the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  and 
the  English  Prayer-Book;  and  the  marvel  is  that  when 
Dickens  is  spoken  of,  it  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  an 
agreement  as  to  which  is  his  greatest  book. 

But  this  paper  is  supposed  to  relate  to  prices  rather 
than  to  books  themselves.  Other  seductive  argu- 
ments having  failed,  one  sometimes  hears  a  vendor  of 
rare  books  add,  in  his  most  convincing  manner,  "And 
you  could  n't  possibly  make  a  better  investment." 
The  idea,  I  suppose,  is  calculated  to  enable  a  man 
to  meet  his  wife's  reproachful  glance,  or  something 


LkjaUuyCirO 
flitt^    y^Jtt    u>.m£^  e<AA*jt^  ^     a.,c»^  j.<N.  y/C^  h*^  y*^.c^ 

%Jbu^tJL^     t-     oU      iii.    /«<-<^^>  tt*!p6      <r^^ft*c    ^n  *A    Au/k-cAJ 

J  cIlUkX^    lS)/>^     iL.  Ltt  //xA  '^t^u.  LJCUi 

,/Zn^  ^/frW  <t^*A     -d*^     C*v/fV,'ilxC       i^^   f't*,„^,H.  s 


4*<-^      /^^^ 


DEDICATION  TO   "THE  VILLAGE  COQUETTES,"  BY  CHARLES  DICKENS 

From  the  mantucript  formerly  in  the  Coggethatl  collection,  much  reduced  in  size 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  119 

worse,  as  he  returns  home  with  a  book  under  his 
arm.  But  when  one  is  about  to  commit  some  piece 
of  extravagance,  such  as  buying  a  book  of  which 
one  aheady  has  several  copies,  one  will  grasp  at  any 
straw,  the  more  so  as  there  may  be  some  truth  in 
the  statement. 

There  are,  however,  so  many  good  reasons  why  we 
should  buy  rare  books,  that  it  seems  a  pity  ever  to 
refer  to  the  least  of  them.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  am 
called  on  to  give  any  judgment  in  the  matter;  but  my 
belief  is  that  the  one  best  and  sufficient  reason  for 
a  man  to  buy  a  book  is  because  he  thinks  he  will  be 
happier  with  it  than  without  it.  I  always  question 
myself  on  this  point,  and  another  which  presses  it 
closely  —  can  I  pay  for  it.'^  I  confess  that  I  do  not  al- 
ways listen  so  attentively  for  the  answer  to  this  sec- 
ond question ;  but  I  try  so  to  live  as  to  be  able  to  look 
my  bookseller  in  the  eye  and  tell  him  where  to  go. 
I  govern  myseK  by  few  rules,  but  this  is  one  of  them 
—  never  to  allow  a  book  to  enter  my  library  as  a 
creditor. 

"Un  livre  est  un  ami  qui  ne  change  jamais";  I  want 
to  enjoy  my  friends  whenever  I  am  with  them.  One 
would  get  very  tired  of  a  friend  if,  every  time  one 
met  him,  he  should  suggest  a  touch  for  fifty  or  five 
hundred  dollars.  On  the  shelves  in  my  office  are  some 
books  that  are  mine,  some  in  which  there  is  at  the 
moment  a  joint  ownership,  and  some  which  will  be 
mine  in  the  near  future,  I  hope  —  and  doubtless  in 
this  hope  I  am  not  alone;  but  the  books  on  the  shelves 


120      A^IEXITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

around  the  room  in  which  I  write  are  mine,  all  of 
them. 

The  advice  given  by  "Punch"  to  those  about  to 
marry  —  "Don't"  —  seems,  then,  to  be  the  best  ad- 
vice to  a  man  who  is  tempted  to  buy  by  the  hope  of 
making  a  profit  out  of  his  books;  but  I  observe  that 
this  short  and  ugly  word  deters  very  few  from  fol- 
lowing their  inclinations  in  the  matter  of  marriage, 
and  this  advice  may  fall,  as  advice  usually  falls,  on 
deaf  ears.  Only  when  a  man  is  safely  ensconced  in 
six  feet  of  earth,  with  several  tons  of  enlauding  granite 
upon  his  chest,  is  he  in  a  position  to  give  advice  with 
any  certainty,  and  then  he  is  silent;  but  it  will  never- 
theless be  understood  that  I  do  not  recommend  the 
purchase  of  rare  books  as  an  investment,  and  this  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  many  collectors  have  made 
handsome  profits  out  of  the  books  they  have  sold. 
^\Tiile  a  man  may  do  much  worse  with  his  money  than 
buy  rare  books,  he  cannot  be  certain  that  he  can  dis- 
pose of  them  at  a  profit,  nor  is  it  necessary  that  he 
should  do  so.  He  should  be  satisfied  to  eat  his  cake 
and  have  it;  books  selected  with  any  judgment  will 
almost  certainly  afford  this  satisfaction,  and  of  what 
other  hobby  can  this  be  said  with  the  same  assurance.'' 

The  possession  of  rare  books  is  a  delight  best  un- 
derstood by  the  owners  of  them.  They  are  not  called 
upon  to  explain.  The  gentle  will  understand,  and 
the  savage  may  be  disregarded.  It  is  the  scholar 
whose  sword  is  usually  brandished  against  collectors; 
and  I  would  not  have  him   think  that,  in  addition 


MODERN   LOVE 


AKD 


POEMS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  ROADSIDE, 


WITH 


loems  antr  §aUa!trs. 


BT 


GEORGE  MEREDITH, 

ACTHOB  0?  '  THE  SHAVrNO  OF  8HAQPAT,'  '  THE  OBDBAI'  OF  EICH.tAD 
FEVEffKL,'   ETC. 


LONDON : 

CHAPMAN  &  HALL,  193,  PICCADILLY. 

1862, 


122      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

to  our  being  ignorant  of  our  books,  we  are  specula- 
tors in  them  also.  Let  him  remember  that  we  have 
our  uses. 

Unlearned  men  of  books  assume  the  care. 
As  eunuchs  are  the  guardians  of  the  fair. 

It  may  as  well  be  admitted  that  we  do  not  buy  ex- 
pensive books  to  read.  We  may  say  that  it  is  a  de- 
light to  us  to  look  upon  the  very  page  on  which  ap- 
peared for  the  first  time  such  a  sonnet  as  "On  First 
Looking  into  Chapman's  Homer,"  or  to  read  that 
bit  of  realism  unsurpassed,  where  Robinson  Crusoe 
one  day,  about  noon,  discovered  the  print  of  a  man's 
naked  foot  upon  the  sand ;  but  when  we  sit  down  with 
a  copy  of  Keats,  we  do  not  ask  for  a  first  edition; 
much  less  when  we  want  to  live  over  again  the  joys 
of  our  childhood,  do  w^e  pick  up  a  copy  of  Defoe 
which  would  be  a  find  at  a  thousand  dollars.  But 
first  editions  of  Keats's  Poems,  1817,  in  boards,  with 
the  paper  label  if  possible,  and  a  Defoe  unwashed,  in 
a  sound  old  calf  binding,  are  good  things  to  have. 
They  are  indeed  a  joy  forever,  and  will  never  pass  into 
nothingness.  I  cannot  see  why  the  possession  of  fine 
books  is  more  reprehensible  than  the  possession  of 
valuable  property  of  any  other  sort. 

In  speaking  of  books  as  an  investment,  one  implies 
first  editions.  First  editions  are  scarce;  tenth  edi- 
tions, as  Charles  Lamb  stutteringly  suggested,  are 
scarcer,  but  there  is  no  demand  for  them.  WTiy,  then, 
first  editions.'^    The  question  is  usually  dodged;   the 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  123 

truth  may  as  well  be  stated.  There  is  a  joy  m  mere 
ownership.  It  may  be  silly,  or  it  may  be  selfish;  but  it 
is  a  joy,  akin  to  that  of  possessing  land,  which  seems 
to  need  no  defense.  We  do  not  walk  over  our  property 
every  day;  we  frequently  do  not  see  it;  but  when  the 
fancy  takes  us,  we  love  to  forget  our  cares  and  re- 
sponsibilities in  a  ramble  over  our  fields.  In  like  man- 
ner, and  for  the  same  reason,  we  browse  with  delight 
in  a  corner  of  our  library  in  which  we  have  placed 
our  most  precious  books.  We  should  buy  our  books 
as  we  buy  our  clothes,  not  only  to  cover  our  naked- 
ness, but  to  embellish  us;  and  we  should  buy  more 
books  and  fewer  clothes. 

I  am  told  that,  in  proportion  to  our  numbers  and 
our  wealth,  less  money  is  spent  on  books  now  than 
was  spent  fifty  years  ago.  I  suppose  our  growing  love 
of  sport  is  to  some  extent  responsible.  Golf  has  taken 
the  place  of  books.  I  know  that  it  takes  time  and 
costs  money.  I  do  not  play  the  game  myself,  but  I 
have  a  son  who  does.  Perhaps  when  I  am  his  age, 
I  shall  feel  that  I  can  afford  it.  My  sport  is  book- 
hunting.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  game,  a  game  requiring 
skill,  some  money,  and  luck.  The  pleasure  that  comes 
from  seeing  some  book  in  a  catalogue  priced  at  two 
or  three  times  what  I  may  have  paid  for  a  copy,  is  a 
pleasure  due  to  vindicated  judgment.  I  do  not  wish 
to  rush  into  the  market  and  sell  and  secure  my  profit. 
W^hat  is  profit  if  I  lose  my  book.^  Moreover,  if  one 
thinks  of  profit  rather  than  of  books,  there  is  an  in- 
terest charge  to  be  considered.   A  book  for  which  I 


124      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

paid  a  thousand  dollars  a  few  years  ago,  no  longer 
stands  me  at  a  thousand  dollars,  but  at  a  consider- 
ably greater  sum.  A  man  neat  at  figures  could  tell 
with  mathematical  accuracy  just  the  actual  cost  of 
that  book  down  .to  any  given  minute.  I  neither  know 
nor  want  to  know. 

There  is  another  class  of  collector  with  whom  I  am 
not  in  keen  sympathy,  and  that  is  the  men  who  spe- 
cialize in  the  first  published  volumes  of  some  given 
group  of  authors.  These  works  are  usually  of  rela- 
tively little  merit,  but  they  are  scarce  and  expensive: 
scarce,  because  published  in  small  editions  and  at 
first  neglected ;  expensive,  because  they  are  desired  to 
complete  sets  of  first  editions.  Anthony  Trollope's 
first  two  novels  have  a  greater  money  value  than  all 
the  rest  of  his  books  put  together  —  but  they  are 
hard  to  read.  In  like  manner,  a  sensational  novel, 
"Desperate  Remedies,"  by  Hardy,  his  first  venture 
in  fiction,  is  worth  perhaps  as  much  as  fifty  copies  of 
his  "Woodlanders,"  one  of  the  best  novels  of  the  last 
half  century.  George  Gissing,  when  he  was  walking 
our  streets  penniless  and  in  rags,  could  never  have 
supposed  that  a  few  years  later  his  first  novel,  "Work- 
ers in  the  Dawn,"  would  sell  for  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  but  it  has  done  so.  I  have  a  friend  who 
has  just  paid  this  price. 

Just  here  I  would  like  to  remark  that  for  several 
years  I  have  been  seeking,  without  success,  a  copy 
of  the  first  edition  of  that  very  remarkable  book, 
Samuel  Butler's  "The  Way  of  All  Flesh."   Book- 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  125 

sellers  who  jauntily  advertise,  "  Any  book  got,"  will 
please  make  a  note  of  this  one. 

Nor  do  I  think  it  necessary  to  have  every  scrap, 
every  waif  and  stray,  of  any  author,  however  much 
I  may  esteem  him.  My  collection  of  Johnson  is  fairly 
complete,  but  I  have  no  copy  of  Father  Lobo's 
"Abyssinia."  It    was  -. 

an  early  piece  of  hack-      Jo     11ti4      J  CT"  C  U 
work,    a    translation  (/ 

from  the  French,  for  /UM.    <m>4   fl^cV^^^Uo^ 

which     Johnson     re- 
ceived   five    pounds.  q  i    /I       /? 
It  is  not  scarce;  one         O  Ml'.    Johhjifn^, 
would  hardly  want  to 

wi*v^«,v^j  ^  ^  ^^p^  ^^   "RASSELAS" 

read  it.     It  was  the 

recollection  of  this  book,  doubtless,  that  suggested 
the  "Prince  of  Abissinia"  to  Johnson  years  later, 
when  he  wanted  to  write  "fiction,"  as  the  dear  old 
ladies  in  "Cranford"  called  "Rasselas";  but  it  has 
never  seemed  necessary  to  my  happiness  to  have  a 
copy  of  "Lobo."  On  the  other  hand  I  have  "  stocked  " 
"Rasselas"  pretty  considerably,  and  could  supply 
any  reasonable  demand.  Such  are  the  vagaries  of 
collectors. 

Only  once,  I  think,  have  I  been  guilty  of  buying  a 
book  I  did  not  particularly  want,  because  of  its  spec- 
ulative value  —  that  was  when  I  stumbled  across  a 
copy  of  Woodrow  Wilson's  "Constitutional  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States"  with  a  long  inscription 
in  its  author's  cursive  hand.     Even  in  this  case  I 


126      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

think  it  was  my  imagination  rather  than  avarice  that 
led  me  to  pay  a  fancy  price  for  a  book  which  some  day 
when  I  am  not  "among  those  present"  wuU  fetch 


^^".^^^  /f^c^  ■ 


as  many  thousands  as  I  paid  hundreds.  In  1909, 
when  the  inscription  was  written,  its  author  was 
a  relatively  unimportant  man  —  to-day  he  is  known 
throughout  the  world  and  is  in  a  position  to  influence 
its  destinies  as  no  other  man  has  ever  been. 


"ASSOCIATION"  BOOKS  127 

No  paper  dealing  with  the  prices  of  books  would 
be  complete  without  the  remark  that  condition  is 
everything.  Any  rare  book  is  immensely  more  valu- 
able if  in  very  fine  condition.  Imagine  for  a  moment 
a  book  worth,  say,  six  hundred  dollars  in  good  con- 
dition, —  for  example,  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  — 
and  then  imagine  —  if  you  can  —  a  copy  of  this  same 
book  in  boards  uncut.  Would  twenty-five  hundred 
dollars  be  too  high  a  price  for  such  a  copy.'*  I  think 
not. 

Another  point  to  be  remembered  is  that  the  price 
of  a  book  depends,  not  only  on  its  scarcity,  but  also 
on  the  universality  of  the  demand  for  it.  And  once 
again  I  may  take  the  "Vicar"  as  an  example  of  what 
I  mean.  The  "Vicar"  is  not  a  scarce  book.  For  from 
six  to  eight  hundred  dollars,  dependent  upon  condi- 
tion, one  could,  I  think,  lay  his  hands  on  as  many  as 
ten  copies  in  as  many  weeks.  It  is  what  the  trade  call 
a  bread-and-butter  book  —  a  staple.  There  is  always 
a  demand  for  it  and  always  a  supply  at  a  price;  but 
try  to  get  a  copy  of  Fanny  Burney's  "Evelina,"  and 
you  may  have  to  wait  a  year  or  more  for  it.  It  was 
the  first  book  of  an  unknown  young  lady;  the  first 
edition  was  very  small,  it  was  printed  on  poor  paper, 
proved  to  be  immensely  popular,  and  was  immediately 
worn  out  in  the  reading;  but  there  is  no  persistent  de- 
mand for  it  as  there  is  for  the  "Vicar,"  and  it  costs 
only  half  as  much. 

In  reading  over  whatever  I  have  written  on  the 
subject  of  the  prices  of  rare  books,  I  am  aware  that 


128      AIMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

my  remarks  may  sound  to  some  like  a  whistle  —  a 
whistle  to  keep  up  my  courage  at  the  thought  of  the 
prices  I  am  paying.  But  so  long  as  the  "knockout" 
does  not  get  a  foothold  in  this  country,  —  and  it 
would  immediately  be  the  subject  of  investigation  if 
it  did,  and  be  stopped,  as  other  abuses  have  been,  — 
the  prices  of  really  great  books  will  always  average 
higher  and  higher.  "Of  the  making  of  many  books 
there  is  no  end,"  nor  is  there  an  end  to  the  prices  men 
will  be  willing  to  pay  for  them. 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN" 

On  a  cold,  raw  day  in  December,  1882,  there  was  laid 
to  rest  in  Brompton  Cemetery,  in  London,  an  old 
lady,  —  an  actress,  —  whose  name,  Frances  Maria 
Kelly,  meant  little  to  the  generation  of  theatre-goers, 
then  busy  with  the  rising  reputation  of  Henry  Irving 
and  Ellen  Terry.  She  was  a  very  old  lady  when  she 
died  —  ninety-two,  to  be  exact;  she  had  outlived  her 
fame  and  her  friends,  and  few  followed  her  to  her 
grave. 

I  have  said  that  the  day  was  cold  and  raw.  I  do 
not  know  certainly  that  it  was  so;  I  was  not  there; 
but  for  my  sins  I  have  passed  many  Decembers  in 
London,  and  take  the  right,  in  Charles  Lamb's  phrase, 
to  damn  the  weather  at  a  venture. 

Fanny  Kelly,  as  she  was  called  by  the  generations 
that  knew  her,  came  of  a  theatrical  family,  and  most 
of  her  long  life  had  been  passed  on  the  stage.  She 
was  only  seven  when  she  made  her  iSrst  appearance  at 
Drury  Lane,  at  which  theatre  she  acted  for  some 
thirty-six  years,  when  she  retired;  subsequently  she 
established  a  school  of  dramatic  art  and  gave  from 
time  to  time  what  she  termed  "Entertainments,"  in 
which  she  sometimes  took  as  many  as  fourteen  dif- 
ferent parts  in  a  single  evening.  With  her  death  the 
last  link  connecting  us  with  the  age  of  Johnson  was 


130      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

broken.  She  had  acted  with  John  Philip  Kemble  and 
with  Mrs.  Siddons.  By  her  sprightliness  and  grace 
she  had  charmed  Fox  and  Sheridan  and  the  genera- 
tions which  followed,  down  to  Charles  Dickens,  who 
had  acted  with  her  in  private  theatricals  at  her  own 
private  theatre  in  Dean  Street,  —  now  the  Royalty, 
—  taking  the  part  of  Captain  Bobadil  in  Every  Man 
in  his  Humor. 

Nothing  is  more  evanescent  than  the  reputation  of 
an  actor.  Every  age  lingers  lovingly  over  the  great- 
ness of  the  actors  of  its  own  youth;  thus  it  was  that 
the  theatre-goer  of  the  eighteen-eighties  only  yawned 
when  told  of  the  grace  of  Miss  Kelly's  Ophelia,  of  the 
charm  of  her  Lydia  Languish,  or  of  her  bewitch- 
ingness  in  '* breeches  parts."  To  some  she  was  the 
old  actress  for  whom  the  government  was  being  so- 
licited to  do  something;  a  few  thought  of  her  as  the 
old  maiden  lady  who  was  obsessed  with  the  idea 
that  Charles  Lamb  had  once  made  her  an  offer  of 
marriage. 

It  was  well  known  that,  half  a  century  before. 
Lamb  had  been  one  of  her  greatest  admirers.  Every 
reader  of  his  dramatic  criticisms  and  his  letters  knew 
that;  they  knew,  too,  that  in  one  of  his  daintiest 
essays,  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  essay  in  the  lan- 
guage, "Dream  Children,  A  Reverie,"  Lamb,  speak- 
ing apparently  more  autobiographically  than  usual 
even  for  him,  says :  — 

"Then  I  told  how,  for  seven  long  years,  in  hope 
sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair,  yet  persisting  ever. 


*^;r.:.-i   'n   KfYlT 


t^^^^i^-^:^  '^^/t'^^*^^ 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  131 

I  courted  the  fair  Alice  W n;   and,  as  much  as 

children  could  understand,  I  explained  to  them  what 
coyness,  and  difficulty,  and  denial  meant  to  maidens 
—  when  suddenly,  turning  to  Alice,  the  soul  of  the 
first  Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a  reality  of 
re-presentment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which  of 
them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that  bright 
hair  was;  and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both  the  children 
gradually  grew  fainter  to  my  view,  receding  and  still 
receding,  till  nothing  at  last  but  two  mournful  features 
were  seen  in  the  uttermost  distance,  which,  without 
speech,  strangely  impressed  upon  me  the  effects  of 
speech:  — 

*'  *  We  are  not  of  Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor  are  we  chil- 
dren at  all.  The  children  of  Alice  call  Bartrum  father. 
We  are  nothing;  less  than  nothing,  and  dreams.  We 
are  only  what  might  have  been."* 

I  am  quoting,  not  from  the  printed  text,  but  from 
the  original  manuscript,  which  is  my  most  cherished 
literary  possession;  and  this  lovely  peroration,  if  such 
it  may  be  called,  is  the  only  part  of  the  essay  which 
has  been  much  interlineated  or  recast.  It  appears  to 
have  occasioned  Lamb  considerable  difficulty;  there 
was  obviously  some  searching  for  the  right  word;  a 
part  of  it,  indeed,  was  entirely  rewritten. 

The  coyness,  the  difficulty,  and  the  denial  of  Alice: 
was  it  not  immortally  written  into  the  record  by  Lamb 
himself.^  Miss  Kelly's  rejection  of  an  offer  of  marriage 
from  him  must  be  a  figment  of  the  imagination  of 
an  old  lady,  who,  as  her  years  approached  a  century. 


132      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

had  her  dream-children,  too  —  children  who  called 
Lamb  father. 

There  the  matter  rested.  Fanny  Kelly  was  by  way 
of  being  forgotten;  all  the  facts  of  Lamb's  life  were 
known,  apparently,  and  he  had  lain  in  a  curiously 
neglected  grave  in  Edmonton  Churchyard  for  seventy 
years.  Innumerable  sketches  and  lives  and  memo- 
rials of  him,  "final"  and  otherwise,  had  been  written 
and  read.  His  letters  —  not  complete,  perhaps,  but 
volumes  of  them  —  had  been  published  and  read  by 
the  constantly  increasing  number  of  his  admirers,  and 
no  one  suspected  that  Lamb  had  had  a  serious  love- 
affair  —  the  w^orld  accepting  without  reserve  the 
statement  of  one  of  his  biographers  that  "Lamb  at 
the  bidding  of  duty  remained  single,  wedding  himself 
to  the  sad  fortunes  of  his  sister." 

Then,  quite  unexpectedly,  in  1903,  John  Hollings- 
head,  the  former  manager  of  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  dis- 
covered and  published  two  letters  of  Charles  Lamb 
written  on  the  same  day,  July  20,  1819.  One,  a  long 
letter  in  Lamb's  most  serious  vein,  in  which  he  for- 
mally offers  his  hand,  and  in  a  way  his  sister's,  to 
Miss  Kelly,  and  the  other  a  whimsical,  elfish  letter, 
in  which  he  tries  to  disguise  the  fact  that  in  her  refusal 
of  him  he  has  received  a  hard  blow. 

By  reason  of  this  important  discovery,  every  line 
that  Lamb  had  written  in  regard  to  Fanny  Kelly  was 
read  with  new  interest,  and  an  admirable  biography 
of  him  by  his  latest  and  most  sympathetic  critic, 
Edward  Verrall  Lucas,  appearing  shortly  afterwards. 


I  _-  i,  X.~>1» 


[^•%^U.  If  7\m^.;~. 


■,y 


Q4u/^  r  :^^^7^o^  c^^/X-Z/Z/c  /U/17//0 


''"\, 


^/ 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  133 

was  carefully  studied  to  see  what,  if  any,  further  light 
could  be  thrown  upon  this  interesting  subject.  But 
it  appears  that  the  whole  story  has  been  told  in  the 
letters,  and  students  of  Lamb  were  thrown  back  upon 
the  already  published  references. 

In  the  Works  of  Lamb,  published  in  1818,  he  had 
addressed  to  Miss  Kelly  a  sonnet :  — 

You  are  not,  Kelly,  of  the  common  strain. 
That  stoop  their  pride  and  female  honor  down 
To  please  that  many-headed  beast,  the  town, 
And  vend  their  lavish  smiles  and  tricks  for  gain; 
By  fortune  thrown  amid  the  actor's  train. 
You  keep  your  native  dignity  of  thought ; 
The  plaudits  that  attend  you  come  unsought. 
As  tributes  due  unto  your  natural  vein. 
Your  tears  have  passion  in  them,  and  a  grace 
Of  genuine  freshness,  which  our  hearts  avow; 
Your  smiles  are  winds  whose  ways  we  cannot  trace. 
That  vanish  and  return  we  know  not  how  — 
And  please  the  better  from  a  pensive  face. 
And  thoughtful  eye,  and  a  reflecting  brow. 

And  early  in  the  following  year  he  had  printed  in  a 
provincial  journal  an  appreciation  of  her  acting,  com- 
paring her,  not  unfavorably,  with  Mrs.  Jordan,  who, 
in  her  day,  then  over,  is  said  to  have  had  no  rival  in 
comedy  parts. 

Lamb's  earliest  reference  to  Miss  Kelly,  however, 
appears  to  be  in  a  letter  to  the  Wordsworths,  in  which 
he  says  that  he  can  keep  the  accounts  of  his  office, 
comparing  sum  with  sum,  writing  "Paid'*  against 
one  and  "Unpaid"  against  t'other  (this  was  long 
before  the  days  of  scientific  bookkeeping  and  much- 


134      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

vaunted  efficiency),  and  still  reserve  a  corner  of  his 
mind  for  the  memory  of  some  passage  from  a  book, 
or  "the  gleam  of  Fanny  Kelly's  divine  plain  face.'* 
This  is  an  always  quoted  reference  and  seems  cor- 
rectly to  describe  the  lady,  who  is  spoken  of  by  others 
as  an  unaffected,  sensible,  clear-headed,  warm-hearted 
woman,  plain  but  engaging,  with  none  of  the  vanities 
or  arrogance  of  the  actress  about  her.  It  will  be  re- 
called that  Lamb  had  no  love  for  blue-stocking  wo- 
men, and  speaking  of  one,  said,  "If  she  belonged  to  me 
I  would  lock  her  up  and  feed  her  on  bread  and  water 
till  she  left  off  writing  poetry.  A  female  poet,  or  female 
author  of  any  kind,  ranks  below  an  actress,  I  think." 
This  shortest  way  with  minor  poets  has,  perhaps, 
much  to  recommend  it. 

It  was  Lamb's  whim  in  his  essays  to  be  frequently 
misleading,  setting  his  signals  at  full  speed  ahead 
when  they  should  have  been  set  at  danger,  or,  at 
least,  at  caution.  Thus  in  his  charming  essay  "Bar- 
bara S "  (how  unconsciously  one  invariably  uses 

this  adjective  in  speaking  of  anything  Lamb  wrote), 
after  telling  the  story  of  a  poor  little  stage  waif  re- 
ceiving by  mistake  a  whole  sovereign  instead  of  the 
half  a  one  justly  due  for  a  week's  pay,  and  how  she 
was  tempted  to  keep  it,  but  did  not,  he  adds,  "I  had 
the  anecdote  from  the  mouth  of  the  late  Mrs.  Craw- 
ford." Here  seemed  to  be  plain  sailing,  and  grave 
editors  pointed  out  who  Mrs.  Crawford  was:  they  told 
her  maiden  name,  and  for  good  measure  threw  in  the 
names  of  her  several  husbands.  But  Lamb,  in  a  letter 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  135 

to  Bernard  Barton  in  1825,  speaking  of  these  essays, 

said:  "Tell  me  how  you  like  'Barbara  S .'  I  never 

saw  Mrs.  Crawford  in  my  life,  nevertheless  't  is  all 
true  of  somebody."  And  some  years  later,  not  long 
before  he  died,  to  another  correspondent  he  wrote: 
*'As  Miss  Kelly  is  just  now  in  notoriety,"  —  she  was 
then  giving  an  entertainment  called  "Dramatic 
Recollections"  at  the  Strand  Theatre,  —  "it  may 

amuse  you  to  know  that  'Barbara  S '  is  all  of  it 

true  of  her,  being  all  communicated  to  me  from  her 
own  mouth.  Can  we  not  contrive  to  make  up  a  party 
to  see  her.^" 

There  is  another  reference  to  Miss  Kelly,  which,  in 
the  light  of  our  subsequent  knowledge,  is  as  dainty  a 
suggestion  of  marriage  with  her  as  can  be  found  in  the 
annals  of  courtship.  It  appeared  in  "The  Examiner  " 
just  a  fortnight  before  Lamb's  proposal.  In  a  criti- 
cism of  her  acting  as  Rachel  in  "The  Jovial  Crew," 
now  forgotten.  Lamb  was,  he  says,  interrupted  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  play  by  a  stranger  who  sat  beside 
him  remarking  of  Miss  Kelly,  "  What  a  lass  that  were 
to  go  a  gypsying  through  the  world  with!" 

Knowing  how  frequently  Lamb  addressed  Elia, 
his  other  self,  and  Elia,  Lamb,  may  we  not  suppose 
that  on  this  occasion  the  voice  of  the  stranger  was 
the  voice  of  Elia?  W^as  it  unlikely  that  Miss  Kelly, 
who  would  see  the  criticism,  would  hear  the  voice 
and  recognize  it  as  Lamb's.'^  I  love  to  linger  over 
these  delicate  incidents  of  Lamb's  courtship,  which 
was  all  too  brief. 


136      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

But  what  of  Mary?  I  think  she  cannot  but  have 
contemplated  the  likelihood  of  her  brother's  marriage 
and  determined  upon  the  line  she  would  take  in  that 
event.  Years  before  she  had  written,  **  You  will  smile 
when  I  tell  you  I  think  myself  the  only  woman  in  the 
world  who  could  live  with  a  brother's  wife,  and  make 
a  real  friend  of  her,  partly  from  early  observations 
of  the  unhappy  example  I  have  just  given  you,  and 
partly  from  a  knack  I  know  I  have  of  looking  into 
people's  real  character,  and  never  expecting  them  to 
act  out  of  it  —  never  expecting  another  to  do  as  I 
would  in  the  same  case." 

Mary  Lamb  was  an  exceptional  woman;  and  even 
though  her  brother  might  have  thought  he  kept  the 
secret  of  his  love  to  himself,  she  would  know  and,  I 
fancy,  approve.  Was  it  not  agreed  between  them  that 
she  was  to  die  first.'^  and  when  she  was  gone,  who  would 
be  left  to  care  for  Charles.'* 

Before  I  come  to  the  little  drama  —  tragedy  one 
could  hardly  call  it  —  of  Lamb's  love-affair  as  told 
in  his  own  way  by  his  letters,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
refer  to  two  letters  of  his  to  Miss  Kelly,  one  of  them 
relatively  unimportant,  the  other  a  few  lines  only, 
both  unpublished,  which  form  a  part  of  my  own 
Lamb  collection.  These  letters,  before  they  fell  from 
high  estate,  formed  a  part  of  the  "Sentimental  Li- 
brary "  of  Harry  B.  Smith,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for 
much  information  concerning  them.  It  will  be  seen 
that  both  these  letters  work  themselves  into  the  story 
of  Lamb's  love-affair,  which  I  am  trying  to  tell.   So 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  137 

far  as  is  known,  four  letters  are  all  that  he  ever  ad- 
dressed to  the  lady:  the  two  above  referred  to,  and 
the  proposal  and  its  sequel,  in  the  collection  of  Mr. 
Huntington  of  New  York,  where  I  saw  them  not  long 
ago.  I  have  held  valuable  letters  in  my  hand  before, 
but  these  letters  of  Lamb !  I  confess  to  an  emotional 
feeling  with  which  the  mere  book-collector  is  rarely 
credited. 

The  earlier  and  briefer  letter  is  pasted  into  a  copy 
of  the  first  edition  of  the  "Works  of  Charles  Lamb," 


^7- 


/S/8 


1818,  "in  boards,  shaken,"  which  occupies  a  place  of 
honor  on  my  shelves.  It  reads:  "Mr.  Lamb  having 
taken  the  liberty  of  addressing  a  slight  compliment 
to  Miss  Kelly  in  his  first  volume,  respectfully  requests 
her  acceptance  of  the  collection.  7th  June,  1818."  The 
compliment,  of  course,  is  the  sonnet  already  quoted. 
The  second  letter  was  written  just  ten  days  before 
Lamb  asked  Miss  Kelly  to  marry  him.  The  bones 
playfully  referred  to  were  small  ivory  discs,  about 
the  size  of  a  two-shilling  piece,  which  were  allotted  to 
leading  performers  for  the  use  of  their  friends,  giving 


138      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

admission  to  the  pit.  On  one  side  was  the  name  of  the 
theatre;  on  the  other  the  name  of  the  actor  or  actress 
to  whom  they  were  allotted.   The  letter  reads: 

DiL\R  Miss  Kelly,  — 

If  your  Bones  are  not  engaged  on  Monday  night,  will  you 
favor  us  with  the  use  of  them?  I  know,  if  you  can  oblige 
us,  you  will  make  no  bones  of  it;  if  you  cannot,  it  shall 
break  none. betwixt  us.  We  might  ask  somebody  else;  but 
we  do  not  like  the  bones  of  any  strange  animal.  We  should 
be  welcome  to  dear  Mrs.  Liston's,  but  then  she  is  so  plump, 
there  is  no  getting  at  them.  I  should  prefer  Miss  Iver's 
—  they  must  be  ivory  I  take  it  for  granted  —  but  she  is 
married  to  Mr. ,  and  become  bone  of  his  bone,  conse- 
quently can  have  none  of  her  own  to  dispose  of.  Well,  it 
all  comes  to  this,  —  if  you  can  let  us  have  them,  you  will,  I 
dare  say;  if  you  cannot,  God  rest  your  bones.  I  am  almost 
at  the  end  of  my  bon-mots. 

C.  Lamb. 

9th  Jidy,  1819. 

This  characteristic  note  in  Lamb's  best  punning 
manner  ("I  fancy  I  succeed  best  in  epistles  of  mere 
fun;  puns  and  that  nonsense")  may  be  regarded  as 
a  prologue  to  the  drama  played  ten  days  later,  the 
whole  occupying  but  the  space  of  a  single  day. 

And  now  the  curtain  is  lifted  on  the  play  in  which 
Lamb  and  Miss  Kelly  are  the  chief  actors.  Lamb  is  in 
his  lodgings  in  Great  Russell  Street,  Covent  Garden, 
the  individual  spot  he  likes  best  in  all  London.  Bow 
Street  Police  Court  can  be  seen  through  the  window, 
and  Mary  Lamb  seated  thereby,  knitting,  glances 
into  the  busy  street  as  she  sees  a  crowd  of  people  fol- 
low in  the  wake  of  a  constable,  conducting  a  thief  to 


o^ yJ/Un     0071^  a^ '    *-^  *"J'jif*' 


J   * 

c/  Vti^w,  if  yttti.  <*^     tr^^'y^'^  **</>     /yaM.    ufi^    -Mx^^  i^  ^ir^e^ 

^srinuU    2r   JK-^  ^  ^  /  "^^  ^fC^^i^      /.fT^  ^l^  ^^^^^ 

if  ^^    et^*''*^^      y"'^  ^^^  'y"'^   ^rmX^  .     J 


140      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

his  examination.  Lamb  is  seated  at  a  table,  writing. 
We,  unseen,  may  glance  over  his  shoulder  and  see  the 
letter  which  he  has  just  finished. 

Dear  Miss  Kelly,  — 

We  had  the  pleasure,  pain  I  might  better  call  it,  of  seeing 
you  last  night  in  the  new  Play.  It  was  a  most  consummate 
piece  of  acting,  but  what  a  task  for  you  to  undergo!  at  a 
time  when  your  heart  is  sore  from  real  sorrow !  It  has  given 
rise  to  a  train  of  thinking  which  I  cannot  suppress. 

Would  to  God  you  were  released  from  this  way  of  life; 
that  you  could  bring  your  mind  to  consent  to  take  your  lot 
with  us,  and  throw  off  forever  the  whole  burden  of  your 
Profession.  I  neither  expect  nor  wish  you  to  take  notice  of 
this  which  I  am  writing,  in  your  present  over-occupied  & 
hurried  state.  —  But  to  think  of  it  at  your  pleasure.  I  have 
quite  income  enough,  if  that  were  to  justify  me  for  mak- 
ing such  a  proposal,  with  what  I  may  call  even  a  handsome 
provision  for  my  survivor.  What  you  possess  of  your  own 
would  naturally  be  appropriated  to  those  for  whose  sakes 
chiefly  you  have  made  so  many  hard  sacrifices.  I  am  not 
so  foolish  as  not  to  know  that  I  am  a  most  unworthy  match 
for  such  a  one  as  you,  but  you  have  for  years  been  a  prin- 
cipal object  in  my  mind.  In  many  a  sweet  assumed  charac- 
ter I  have  learned  to  love  you,  but  simply  as  F.  M.  Kelly  I 
love  you  better  than  them  all.  Can  you  quit  these  shadows 
of  existence,  &  come  &  be  a  reality  to  us?  Can  you  leave 
off  harassing  yourself  to  please  a  thankless  multitude,  who 
know  nothing  of  you,  &  begin  at  last  to  live  to  yourself  & 
your  friends.'* 

As  plainly  &  frankly  as  I  have  seen  you  give  or  refuse 
assent  in  some  feigned  scene,  so  frankly  do  me  the  justice 
to  answer  me.  It  is  imp>ossible  I  should  feel  injured  or  ag- 
grieved by  your  telling  me  at  once,  that  the  proposal  does 
not  suit  you.  It  is  impossible  that  I  should  ever  think  of 
molesting  you  with  idle  importunity  and  persecution  after 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  141 

your  mind  [is]  once  firmly  spoken  —  but  happier,  far  hap- 
pier, could  I  have  leave  to  hope  a  time  might  come  when 
our  friends  might  be  your  friends;  our  interests  yours;  our 
book-knowledge,  if  in  that  inconsiderable  particular  we 
have  any  httle  advantage,  might  impart  something  to  you, 
which  you  would  every  day  have  it  in  your  power  ten 
thousand  fold  to  repay  by  the  added  cheerfulness  and  jOy 
which  you  could  not  fail  to  bring  as  a  dowry  into  whatever 
family  should  have  the  honor  and  happiness  of  receiving 
you,  the  most  w^elcome  accession  that  could  be  made  to  it. 
In  haste,  but  with  entire  respect  &  deepest  affection, 
I  subscribe  myself 

C.  Lamb. 

20  July,  1819. 

No  punning  or  nonsense  here.  It  is  the  most  seri- 
ous letter  Lamb  ever  wrote  —  a  letter  so  fine,  so  manly, 
so  honorable  in  the  man  w^ho  wrote  it,  so  honoring  to 
the  woman  to  whom  it  w^as  addressed,  that,  knowing 
Lamb  as  we  do,  it  can  hardly  be  read  without  a  lump 
in  the  throat  and  eyes  suffused  with  tears. 

The  latter  is  folded  and  sealed  and  sent  by  a  serv- 
ing-maid to  the  lady,  who  lives  hard  by  in  Henrietta 
Street,  just  the  other  side  of  Co  vent  Garden  —  and 
the  curtain  falls. 

Before  the  next  act  we  are  at  liberty  to  wonder  how 
Lamb  passed  the  time  while  Miss  Kelly  w-as  writing 
her  reply.  Did  he  go  off  to  the  "  dull  drudgery  of  the 
desk's  dead  wood"  at  East  India  House,  and  there 
busy  himself  with  the  prices  of  silks  or  tea  or  indigo, 
or  did  he  wander  about  the  streets  of  his  beloved  Lon- 
don.'^ I  fancy  the  latter.  In  any  event  the  curtain 
rises  a  few  hours  later,  and  Lamb  and  his  sister  are 


142      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

seen  as  before.  She  has  laid  aside  her  knitting.  It  is 
late  afternoon.  Lamb  is  seated  at  the  table  endeavor- 
ing to  read,  when  a  maid  enters  and  hands  him  a  let- 
ter; he  breaks  the  seal  eagerly.  Again  we  look  over 
his  shoulder  and  read :  — 

Henrietta  Street,  July  20th,  1819. 

An  early  &  deeply  rooted  attachment  has  fixed  my  heart 
on  one  from  whom  no  worldly  prospect  can  well  induce  me 
to  withdraw  it,  but  while  I  thus  frankly  &  decidedly  de- 
cline your  proposal,  believe  me,  I  am  not  insensible  to  the 
high  honour  which  the  preference  of  such  a  mind  as  yours 
confers  upon  me  —  let  me,  however,  hope  that  all  thought 
upon  this  subject  will  end  with  this  letter,  &  that  you 
henceforth  encourage  no  other  sentiment  towards  me  than 
esteem  in  my  private  character  and  a  continuance  of  that 
approbation  of  my  humble  talents  which  you  have  al- 
ready expressed  so  much  and  so  often  to  my  advantage 
and  gratification. 

Believe  me  I  feel  proud  to  acknowledge  myself 
Your  obliged  friend 

F.  M.  Kelly. 

Lamb  rises  from  his  chair  and  attempts  to  walk 
over  to  where  Mary  is  sitting;  but  his  feelings  over- 
come him,  and  he  sinks  back  in  his  chair  again  as  the 
curtain  falls. 

It  moves  quickly,  the  action  of  this  little  drama. 
The  curtain  is  down  but  a  moment,  suggesting  the 
passage  of  a  single  hour.  WTien  it  is  raised,  Lamb  is 
alone;  he  is  but  forty-five,  but  looks  an  old  man.  The 
curtains  are  drawn,  lighted  candles  are  on  the  table. 
We  hear  the  rain  against  the  windows.  Lamb  is  writ- 
ing, and  for  the  last  time  we  intrude  upon  his  privacy. 


"WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN"  143 

Now  poor  Charles  Lamb,  now  dear  Charles  Lamb, 
"Saint  Charles,"  if  you  will!  Our  hearts  go  out  to  him; 
we  would  comfort  him  if  we  could.  But  read  slowly 
one  of  the  finest  letters  in  all  literature:  a  letter  in 
which  he  accepts  defeat  instantly,  but  with  a  smile 
on  his  face;  tears  there  may  have  been  in  his  eyes,  but 
she  was  not  to  see  them.  See  Lamb  in  his  supreme 
role  —  of  a  man.  How  often  had  he  urged  his  friends 
to  play  that  difficult  part  —  which  no  one  could  play 
better  than  he.  The  letter  reads :  — 

Dear  Miss  Kelly,  — 

Your  injunctions  shall  be  obeyed  to  a  tittle.  I  feel  myself 
in  a  lackadaisical  no-how-ish  kind  of  a  humor.  I  believe 
it  is  the  rain,  or  something.  I  had  thought  to  have  written 
seriously,  but  I  fancy  I  succeed  best  in  epistles  of  mere  fun; 
puns  &  that  nonsense.  You  will  be  good  friends  with  us, 
will  you  not.?^  Let  what  has  past  "break  no  bones"  be- 
tween us.  You  will  not  refuse  us  them  next  time  we  send 
for  them? 

Yours  very  truly,  C.  L. 

P.S.  Do  you  observe  the  delicacy  of  not  signing  my 
full  name.^* 

N.B.  Do  not  paste  that  last  letter  of  mine  into  your  book. 

We  sometimes  say  the  English  are  not  good  losers. 
To  think  of  Charles  Lamb  may  help  us  to  correct  that 
opinion. 

All  good  plays  of  the  period  have  an  epilogue.  By  all 
means  this  should  have  one;  and  ten  days  later  Lamb 
himself  provided  it.  It  appeared  in  "The  Exam- 
iner," where,  speaking  of  Fanny  Kelly's  acting  in 
"The  Hypocrite,"  he  said,  — 


144      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

"She  is  in  truth  not  framed  to  tease  or  torment 
even  in  jest,  but  to  utter  a  hearty  Yes  or  No;  to 
yield  or  refuse  assent  with  a  noble  sincerity.  We  have 
not  the  pleasure  of  being  acquainted  with  her,  but 
we  have  been  told  that  she  carries  the  same  cordial 
manners  into  private  life." 

The  curtain  falls!  The  play  is  at  an  end. 


VI 

JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK 

Sitting  one  evening  with  my  favorite  book  and  en- 
joying the  company  of  a  crackling  wood  fire,  I  was 
interrupted  by  a  cheerful  idiot  who,  entering  unheard, 
announced  himself  with  the  remark,  "This  is  what 
I  call  a  library."  Indifferent  to  a  forced  welcome,  he 
looked  about  him  and  continued,  *'I  see  you  are  fond 
of  Boswell.  I  always  preferred  Macaulay's  'Life  of 
Johnson'  to  Boswell's  —  it's  so  much  shorter.  I  read 
it  in  college." 

Argument  would  have  been  wasted  on  him.  If  he 
had  been  alone  in  his  opinion,  I  would  have  killed  him 
and  thus  exterminated  the  species;  but  he  is  only  one 
of  a  large  class,  who  having  once  read  Macaulay's 
essay,  and  that  years  ago,  feel  that  they  have  re- 
ceived a  peculiar  insight  into  the  character  of  Samuel 
Johnson  and  have  a  patent  to  sneer  at  his  biographer. 

Having  a  case  of  books  by  and  about  the  dear  old 
Doctor,  I  have  acquired  a  reputation  that  plagues 
me.  People  ask  to  see  my  collection,  not  that  they 
know  anything  about  it,  or  care,  but  simply  to  please 
me,  as  they  think.  Climbing  to  unusual  intellectual 
heights,  when  safe  at  the  top,  where  there  is  said  to 
be  always  room,  they  look  about  and  with  a  knowing 
leer  murmur,  "Oh!  rare  Ben!"  I  have  become  quite 
expert  at  lowering  them  from  their  dangerous  position 


146      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

without  showing  them  the  depths  of  their  ignorance. 
This  is  a  feat  which  demands  such  skill  as  can  be  ac- 
quired only  by  long  practice. 

Macaulay's  essay  is  anathema  to  me.  If  it  were  a 
food-product,  the  authorities  would  long  since  have 
suppressed  it  on  account  of  its  artificial  coloring  mat- 
ter; but  prep.-school  teachers  and  college  professors  go 
on  "requiring"  its  reading  from  sheer  force  of  habit; 
and  as  long  as  they  continue  to  do  so,  the  true  Sam- 
uel Johnson  and  the  real  James  Boswell  will  both 
remain  unknown. 

Out  of  a  thousand  who  have  read  this  famous  essay 
and  remember  its  wonderfully  balanced  sentences, 
which  stick  in  the  memory  like  burrs  in  the  hair,  p)er- 
haps  not  more  than  one  will  be  able  to  recall  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  it  was  written.  Purporting 
to  be  a  review  of  a  new  edition  of  Boswell's  *'Life  of 
Johnson,"  edited  by  John  Wilson  Croker,  it  is  really 
a  personal  attack  on  a  bitter  political  enemy.  Writ- 
ten at  a  time  when  political  feeling  ran  high,  it  begins 
with  a  lie.  Using  the  editorial  '*  We,"  Macaulay  opens 
by  saying,  "We  are  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  say  that 
the  merits  of  Mr.  Croker's  performance  are  on  a  par 
with  those  of  a  certain  leg  of  mutton  on  which  Dr. 
Johnson  dined  while  travelling  from  London  to  Ox- 
ford, and  which  he,  with  characteristic  energy,  pro- 
nounced to  be  as  bad  as  could  be." 

Let  us  see  how  sorry  INIacaulay  really  was.  In  a 
letter  written  to  his  sister  just  before  Croker's  book 
appeared  he  writes:  *'I  am  to  review  Croker's  edition 


.lA.MKS  HO?^\VKLL  OV  Ale  HINLKC  K.   KS(JI{. 

Pointed  hv  Sir  Joshua  lieynol'ls-    Kiirjriii-,-,1  l,i/  JoJm  Joiirs 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  147 

of  Bozzy.  ...  I  detest  Croker  more  than  cold  boiled 
veal.  .  .  .  See  whether  I  do  not  dust  the  varlet's 
jacket  in  the  next  number  of  the  'Edinburgh  Re- 
view.'" And  he  did,  and  the  cloud  of  dust  he  then 
raised  obscured  Johnson,  settled  on  Boswell,  and  for 
a  time  almost  smothered  him. 

I  suspect  that  Macaulay  prepared  himself  for  writ- 
ing his  smashing  article  by  reading  Croker's  book 
through  in  half  a  dozen  evenings,  pencil  in  hand, 
searching  for  blemishes.  After  that,  his  serious  work 
began.  Blinded  by  his  hatred  of  the  editor,  he  makes 
Johnson  grotesque  and  repulsive,  and  grossly  insults 
Boswell.  He  started  with  the  premise  that  Boswell 
was  mean,  but  that  his  book  was  great.  Then  the 
proposition  defined  itself  in  his  mind  something  like 
this:  Boswell  was  one  of  the  smallest  men  that  ever 
lived,  yet  his  "Life  of  Johnson"  is  one  of  the  great- 
est books  ever  written.  Boswell  was  always  laying 
himself  at  the  feet  of  some  eminent  man,  begging  to 
be  spit  upon  and  trampled  upon,  yet  as  a  biographer 
he  ranks  with  Shakespeare  as  a  dramatist;  and  so  he 
goes  on,  until  at  last,  made  dizzy  by  the  sweep  of  his 
verbal  seesaw  and  the  lilt  of  his  own  brutal  rhetoric, 
he  finally  reaches  the  conclusion  that,  because  Bos- 
well was  a  great  fool,  he  was  a  very  great  writer. 

Absurdity  can  go  no]  further.  Well  may  we  ask 
ourselves  what  Boswell  had  done  to  be  thus  pilloried.'^ 
Nothing!  except  that  he  had  written  a  book  which  is 
universally  admitted  to  be  the  best  book  of  its  kind 
in  any  language. 


us      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

What  manner  of  a  man  was  James  Boswell?  He 
was,  more  than  most  men,  a  mass  of  contradictions. 
It  would  never,  I  think,  have  been  easy  to  answer  this 
question.  Since  Macaulay  answered  it,  in  his  cocksure 
way,  and  answered  it  wrongly,  to  answer  it  rightly 
is  most  diflScult.  It  is  so  easy  to  keep  ringing  the 
changes  on  Macaulay.  Any  fool  with  a  pen  can  do  it. 
Some  time  ago,  apropos  of  the  effort  being  made  to 
preserve  the  house  in  Great  Queen  Street,  in  London, 
in  which  Boswell  lived  when  he  wrote  the  biography, 
some  foolish  writer  in  a  magazine  said,  "Boswell 
shrivels  more  and  more  as  we  look  at  him.  ...  It 
would  be  absurd  to  preserve  a  memorial  to  him  alone." 
—  "Shrivels!"  Impossible!  Johnson  and  Boswell  as  a 
partnership  have  been  too  long  established  for  either 
member  of  the  firm  to  "shrivel."  Unconsciously  per- 
haps, but  consciously  I  think,  Boswell  has  so  man- 
aged it  that,  when  the  senior  partner  is  thought  of, 
the  junior  also  comes  to  mind.  Johnson's  contribu- 
tion to  the  business  was  experience  and  unlimited  com- 
mon sense;  Boswell  made  him  responsible  for  out- 
put: the  product  was  words,  merely  spoken  words, 
either  of  wisdom  or  of  wit.  Distribution  is  quite  as 
important  as  production  —  any  railroad  man  will  tell 
you  so.  Boswell  had  a  genius  for  packing  and  de- 
livering the  goods  so  that  they  are,  if  anything,  im- 
proved by  time  and  transportation. 

Let  me  have  one  more  fling  at  Macaulay.  He 
missed,  and  for  his  sins  he  deserved  to  miss,  two  good 
things  without  which  this  world  would  be  a  sad  place. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  fflS  BOOK  149 

He  had  no  wife  and  he  had  no  sense  of  humor.  Either 
would  have  told  him  that  he  was  writing  sheer  non- 
sense when  he  said,  "The  very  wife  of  his  [Boswell's] 
bosom  laughed  at  his  fooleries."  What  are  wives  for, 
I  should  like  to  know,  if  not  to  laugh  at  us? 

But  reputation  is  like  a  pendulum,  and  it  is  now 
swinging  from  Macaulay.  James  Boswell  is  coming 
into  his  own.  The  biographer  will  outlive  the  essay- 
ist, brilliant  and  wonderful  writer  though  he  be;  and 
I  venture  the  prophecy  that,  when  the  traveler  from 
New  Zealand  takes  his  stand  on  the  ruined  arch  of 
London  Bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's,  he 
will  have  a  pocket  edition  of  Boswell  with  him,  in 
which  to  read  something  of  the  lives  of  those  strange 
people  who  inhabited  that  vast  solitude  when  it  was 
called  London. 

James  Boswell  was  born  in  1740.  His  father  was 
a  Scottish  judge,  with  the  title  of  Lord  Auchinleck. 
Auchinleck  is  in  Ayrshire,  and  the  estate  had  be- 
longed to  the  Boswells  for  over  two  hundred  years 
when  the  biographer  of  Johnson  was  bom.  As  a 
young  man,  he  was  rather  a  trial  to  his  father,  and 
showed  his  ability  chiefly  in  circumventing  the  old 
man's  wishes.  The  father  destined  him  for  the  law; 
but  he  was  not  a  good  student,  and  was  fond  of  so- 
ciety; so  the  choice  of  the  son  was  for  the  army. 

We,  however,  know  Boswell  better  than  he  knew 
himself,  and  we  know  that  when  he  fancied  that  he 
heard  the  call  to  arms,  what  he  really  wanted  was 


150      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

to  parade  around  in  a  scarlet  uniform  and  make  love 
to  the  ladies.  But  even  in  those  early  days  there 
must  have  been  something  attractive  about  him,  for 
when  he  and  his  father  went  up  to  London  to  solicit 
the  good  offices  of  the  Duke  of  Argyle  to  secure  a 
commission  for  him,  the  duke  is  reported  to  have 
declined,  saying,  "My  Lord,  I  like  your  son.  The 
boy  must  not  be  shot  at  for  three  shillings  and  six- 
pence a  day." 

Boswell  was  only  twenty  when  he  first  heard  of  the 
greatness  of  Samuel  Johnson  and  formed  a  desire  to 
meet  him;  but  it  was  not  until  several  years  later 
that  the  great  event  occurred.  What  a  meeting  it 
was!  It  seems  almost  to  have  been  foreordained.  A 
proud,  flippant,  pushing  young  particle,  irresponsi- 
ble and  practically  unknown,  meets  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  men  then  living  in  London-,  a  man  more 
than  thirty  years  his  senior  and  in  almost  every  re- 
spect his  exact  opposite,  and  so  carries  himself  that, 
in  spite  of  a  rebuff  or  two  at  the  start,  we  find  John- 
son a  few  days  later  shaking  him  by  the  hand  and 
asking  him  why  he  does  not  come  oftener  to  see  him. 

The  description  of  the  first  meeting  between  John- 
son and  Boswell,  written  many  years  afterwards,  is 
a  favorite  passage  with  all  good  Boswellians.  "At 
last,  on  Monday,  the  16th  of  May  ^  [1763],  when  I 
was  sitting  in  Mr.  Davies'  back  parlour,  after  having 

^  I  received  a  note  some  time  ago  from  Christopher  Morley,  saying, 
"  Let  us  hereafter  and  forever  drink  tea  together  on  this  date  in  cele- 
bration of  this  meeting." 


PORTRAIT  OF   DR.  JOHNSON"   BY   SIR  JOSHUA   REYNOLDS,  PROBABLY   IDEALIZED. 
THE  DOCTOR  IS  WEARING  A  TIE-WIG  AND  HOLDS  A  COPY  OF  "IRENE" 


Engraved  lnj  Znf,)-l 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  151 

drunk  tea  with  him  and  Mrs.  Davies,  Johnson  unex- 
pectedly came  into  the  shop;  and  Mr.  Davies,  having 
perceived  him  through  the  glass-door  in  the  room  in 
which  we  were  sitting,  advancing  toward  us,  —  he 
announced  his  aweful  approach  to  me,  somewhat  in 
the  manner  of  an  actor  in  the  part  of  Horatio,  when 
he  addresses  Hamlet  on  the  appearance  of  his  father's 
ghost,  'Look,  my  Lord,  it  comes!'" 

This  is  a  good  example  of  Boswell's  style.  In  the 
fewest  possible  words  he  creates  a  picture  which  one 
never  forgets.  We  not  only  hear  the  talk,  we  see  the 
company,  and  soon  come  to  know  every  member  of  it. 

Without  this  meeting  the  world  would  have  lost 
one  of  the  most  delightful  books  ever  written,  Bos- 
well  himself  would  probably  never  have  been  heard 
of,  and  Johnson  to-day  would  be  a  mere  name  in- 
stead of  being,  as  he  is,  next  to  Shakespeare,  the  most 
quoted  of  English  authors.  As  Augustine  Birrell  has 
pointed  out,  we  have  only  talk  about  other  talkers. 
Johnson's  is  a  matter  of  record.  Johnson  stamped  his 
image  on  his  own  generation,  but  it  required  the  genius 
of  Boswell  to  make  him  known  to  ours,  and  to  all 
generations  to  come.  ''Great  as  Johnson  is,"  says 
Burke,  "he  is  greater  in  Boswell's  books  than  in  his 
own."  That  we  now  speak  of  the  "Age  of  Johnson" 
is  due  rather  to  Boswell  than  to  the  author  of  the 
"Dictionary,"  "Rasselas,"  and  endless  "Ramblers." 

Someone  has  said  that  the  three  greatest  charac- 
ters in  English  literature  are  Falstaff ,  Mr.  Pickwick, 
and  Dr.  Johnson.    Had  James  Boswell  created  the 


152      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

third  of  this  great  trio,  he  would  indeed  rank  with 
Shakespeare  and  with  Dickens;  but  Johnson  was  his 
own  creation,  and  Boswell,  posing  as  an  artist,  painted 
his  portrait  as  mortal  man  has  never  been  painted 
before.  In  his  pages  we  see  the  many-sided  Johnson, 
the  great  burly  philosopher,  scholar,  wit,  and  ladies' 
man  —  Boswell  makes  him  a  shade  too  austere  — 
more  clearly  than  any  other  man  who  ever  lived. 
As  a  portrait-painter,  Boswell  is  the  world's  greatest 
artist;  and  he  is  not  simply  a  portrait-painter  —  he 
is  unsurpassed  at  composition,  atmosphere,  and  color. 
His  book  is  like  Rembrandt's  Night  Watch  —  the 
canvas  is  crowded,  the  portraits  all  are  faultless  and 
distinct,  but  there  is  one  dominating  figure  standing 
out  from  the  rest  —  one  masterly,  unsurpassed,  and 
immortal  figure. 

Boswell,  when  he  first  met  Johnson,  was  twenty- 
two  years  of  age.  A  year  later  he  writes  him:  "It 
shall  be  my  study  to  do  what  I  can  to  render  your 
life  happy ;  and  if  you  die  before  me,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  do  honor  to  your  memory."  He  kept  his  word. 
From  that  hour  almost  to  the  time  of  Johnson's  death 
(I  say  almost,  for  just  before  the  end  there  seems  to 
have  fallen  upon  their  friendship  a  shadow,  the  cause 
of  which  has  never  been  fully  explained),  they  were 
unreservedly  friends.  Superficially  they  had  little  in 
common,  but  in  essentials,  all  that  was  important; 
and  they  supplemented  each  other  as  no  two  men 
have  ever  done  before  or  since.  Reading  the  Life 
casually,  as  it  is  usually  read,  one  would  suppose  that 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  153 

they  were  very  much  together;  but  such  is  not  the 
case.  Birkbeck  Hill,  Boswell's  most  painstaking  edi- 
tor, has  calculated  that,  including  the  time  when  Bos- 
well  and  Johnson  were  together  in  the  Hebrides,  they 
could  have  seen  each  other  only  for  790  days  in  all; 
and  this  on  the  assumption  that  Boswell,  when  in 
London,  was  always  in  Johnson's  company,  which  we 
know  was  not  the  case;  moreover,  when  they  were 
apart  there  were  gaps  of  years  in  their  correspondence. 

Boswell,  however,  weaves  the  story  of  Johnson's 
life  so  skillfully  that  we  come  to  have  the  feeling  that 
whenever  Johnson  was  going  to  say  anything  impor- 
tant, Boswell  was  at  his  side.  Johnson,  in  speaking 
of  his  Dictionary  once  said,  "WTiy,  Sir,  I  knew  very 
well  how  to  go  about  it  and  have  done  it  very  well." 
Boswell  could  have  said  the  same  of  his  great  work. 
We  had  no  great  biography  before  his,  and  in  com- 
parison we  have  had  none  since.  The  combination 
of  so  great  a  subject  for  portraiture  and  so  great  an 
artist  had  never  occurred  before  and  may  never  occur 
again.   Geniuses  ordinarily  do  not  run  in  couples. 

Boswell  hoped  that  his  book  would  bring  him  fame. 
Over  it  he  labored  at  a  time  when  labor  was  espe- 
cially diflBcult  for  him.  For  it  he  was  prepared  to  sacri- 
fice himself,  his  friends,  anything.  Whatever  would 
add  to  his  book's  value  he  would  include,  at  whatever 
cost.  A  more  careful  and  exact  biographer  never 
lived.  Reynolds  said  of  him  that  he  wrote  as  if  he 
were  under  oath;  and  we  all  remember  the  reply  he 
made  to  Hannah  More,  who,  when  she  heard  he  was 


154      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

engaged  in  writing  the  life  of  her  revered  friend,  urged 
him  to  mitigate  somewhat  the  asperities  of  his  dis- 
position: "No,  madam,  I  will  not  cut  his  claws  or 
make  my  tiger  a  cat  to  please  anyone." 

And  for  writing  this  book  Boswell  has  been  held 
up  to  almost  universal  scorn.  His  defenders  have 
been  few  and  faint-hearted.  I  have  never  derived 
much  satisfaction  from  Boswell's  rescue  (the  word 
is  Lowell's)  by  Carlyle.  That  unhappy  old  dyspeptic, 
unable  to  enjoy  a  good  dinner  himself,  could  not  for- 
give Boswell  his  gusto  for  the  good  things  of  life. 

Wliat  were  Boswell's  faults  above  those  of  other 
men,  that  stones  should  be  thrown  at  him?  He  drank 
too  much !  True,  but  what  of  it.'^  WTio  in  his  day  did 
not?  Johnson  records  that  many  of  the  most  re- 
spectable people  in  his  cathedral  city  of  Lichfield 
went  nightly  to  bed  drunk. 

He  was  an  unfaithful  husband!  Admitted;  but 
Mrs.  Boswell  forgave  him,  and  why  should  not  we? 

He  was  proud !  He  was,  but  the  pride  of  race  is  not 
unheard  of  in  the  scion  of  an  old  family;  nor  did  he 
allow  his  pride  to  prevent  his  attaching  himself  to  an 
old  man  who  admitted  that  he  hardly  knew  who  was 
his  grandfather. 

He  had  a  taste  for  knowing  people  highly  placed! 
He  had,  and  he  came  to  number  among  his  friends 
the  greatest  scholar,  the  greatest  poet,  the  greatest 
painter,  the  greatest  actor,  the  greatest  historian, 
and  most  of  the  great  statesmen  of  his  day;  and  these 
men,  though  they  laughed  with  him  frequently,  and 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  155 

at  him  sometimes,  did  not  think  him  altogether  a 
fool. 

He  was  vain  and  foolish!  Yes,  and  inquisitive;  yet 
while  neither  wise  nor  witty  himself,  he  had  an  ex- 
quisite appreciation  of  wit  in  others.  He  carried  re- 
partees and  arguments  with  accuracy.  Mrs.  Thrale 
very  cleverly  said  that  his  long-head  \Vas  better  than 
short-hand;  yet,  as  some  one  has  pointed  out,  to  fol- 
low the  hum  of  conversation  with  so  much  intelli- 
gence required  unusual  quickness  of  apprehension  and 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  opinion  that  he  was 
simply  endowed  with  memory. 

He  lived  beyond  his  means  and  got  into  debt!  I 
seem  to  have  heard  something  of  this  of  other  men 
whose  fathers  were  not  enjoying  a  comfortable  estate 
and  whose  children  were  not  adequately  provided  for. 

Let  there  be  an  end  to  a  discussion  of  the  weak- 
nesses of  Boswell.  They  have  been  sufficiently  ad- 
vertised and  his  good  qualities  overlooked.  If  a  man 
is  a  genius,  let  his  personal  shortcomings  be  absorbed 
in  the  greatness  of  his  work.  The  worst  that  can  be 
fairly  said  of  Boswell  is  that  he  was  vain,  inquisitive, 
and  foolish.  Let  us  forget  the  silly  questions  he  some- 
times put  to  Johnson,  and  remember  how  often  he 
started  something  which  made  the  old  Doctor  per- 
form at  his  unrivaled  best. 

The  difficulty  is  that  Boswell  told  on  himself. 
As  he  was  speaking  to  Johnson  one  day  of  his  weak- 
nesses, the  old  man  admitted  that  he  had  them,  too, 
but  added,  "I  don't  tell  of  them.    A  man  should  be 


156      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

careful  not  to  tell  tales  of  himself  to  his  own  dis- 
advantage." It  would  have  been  well  if  Boswell 
could  have  remembered  this  excellent  bit  of  advice; 
but  Johnson's  advice,  whether  sought  or  unsought, 
was  too  frequently  disregarded. 

One  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds, has  testified  to  his  truthfulness,  and  even  a 
casual  reader  of  the  Life  will  admit  that  he  was  cou- 
rageous. Tossed  and  gored  by  Johnson,  as  he  fre- 
quently was,  he  always  came  back;  and,  much  as  he 
respected  the  old  man,  he  was  never  overawed  by 
him.  He  differed  with  him  on  the  wisdom  of  taxing 
the  American  Colonies,  on  the  merits  of  the  novels  of 
Fielding,  on  the  poetry  of  Gray,  and  on  many  other 
subjects.  To  differ  with  Johnson  required  courage  and 
conversational  ability  of  no  common  order.  Indeed, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether,  next  to  Johnson  himself, 
Boswell  was  not  the  best  talker  in  the  circle  —  and 
Johnson's  circle  included  the  most  brilliant  men  of 
his  time.  He  was  sometimes  very  happy  in  his  refer- 
ence to  himself:  as  where,  having  brought  Paoli  and 
Johnson  together,  he  compares  himself  to  an  isthmus 
connecting  two  great  continents.  Indeed,  the  great 
work  is  so  famous  as  a  biography  of  Johnson  that  few 
people  realize  to  what  an  extent  and  how  subtly  Bos- 
well has  made  it  his  own  autobiography. 

Johnson  once  said,  "Sir,  the  biographical  part  of 
literature  is  what  I  love  best."  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  it  is  so  with  most  of  us.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  for  Boswell,  the  biographer  par  excellence. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  157 

not  to  have  told  in  one  way  or  another  the  story  of 
his  own  life.  He  told  it  in  his  account  of  the  island 
of  Corsica,  and  in  his  letters  to  his  life-long  friend. 
Temple.  These  deserve  to  be  better  known  than  they 
are.  They  are  indeed  just  such  letters  as  Samuel 
Pepys  might  have  written  in  cipher  to  his  closest 
friend,  whom  he  had  already  provided  with  a  key. 

The  first  letter  of  this  correspondence  is  dated 
Edinburgh,  29  July,  1758,  when  Boswell  was  eighteen 
years  of  age;  and  the  last  was  on  his  writing-desk  in 
London  when  the  shadow  of  death  fell  upon  him, 
thirty-seven  years  later. 

The  manner  in  which  these  letters  came  to  be  pub- 
lished is  interesting.  An  English  clergyman  touring 
in  France,  having  occasion  to  make  some  small  pur- 
chases at  a  shop  in  Boulogne,  observed  that  the  paper 
in  which  they  were  wrapped  was  a  fragment  of  an 
English  letter.  Upon  inspection  a  date  and  some  well- 
known  names  were  observed,  and  further  investi- 
gation showed  that  the  piece  of  paper  was  part  of  a 
correspondence  carried  on  nearly  a  century  before 
between  Boswell  and  a  friend,  the  Reverend  William 
Johnson  Temple.  On  making  inquiry,  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  this  piece  of  paper  had  been  taken  from 
a  large  parcel  recently  purchased  from  a  hawker,  who 
was  in  the  habit  of  passing  through  Boulogne  once 
or  twice  a  year,  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  dif- 
ferent shops  with  paper.  Beyond  this  no  further  in- 
formation could  be  obtained.  The  whole  contents  of 
the  parcel  were  immediately  secured. 


158      A]MENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

At  the  death  of  the  purchaser  of  these  letters  they 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  nephew,  from  whom  they 
were  obtained,  and  published  in  1857,  after  such 
editing  and  expurgating  as  was  then  fashionable. 
Who  did  the  work  has  never  been  discovered,  nor 
does  it  matter,  as  the  letters  fortunately  passed  into 
the  collection  of  J.  P.  Morgan,  and  are  now,  finally, 
being  edited,  together  with  such  other  letters  as  are 
available,  by  Professor  Tinker  of  Yale.  Students  of 
eighteenth-century  literature  have  good  reason  for  be- 
lieving that  a  volume  of  supreme  interest  is  in  prepa- 
ration for  them;  for  such  self -revealing  letters,  such 
human  documents  as  those  of  James  Boswell,  could 
have  been  written  only  by  their  author,  or  by  Samuel 
Pepys.  As  these  letters  are  little  known,  let  me  give 
a  few  excerpts  from  them  as  originally  published.  On 
one  of  his  journeys  to  London,  Boswell  ^\Tites:  — 

I  have  thought  of  making  a  good  acquaintance  in  each 
town  on  the  road.  No  man  has  been  more  successful  in 
making  acquaintances  easily  than  I  have  been;  I  even 
bring  people  quickly  on  to  a  degree  of  cordiality  .  .  .  but 
I  know  not  if  I  last  sufficiently,  though  surely,  my  dear 
Temple,  there  is  always  a  warm  place  for  you. 

Further  along  on  the  road  he  writes  again :  — 

I  am  in  charming  health  and  spirits.  There  is  a  hand- 
some maid  at  this  inn,  who  interrupts  me  by  coming  some- 
times into  the  room.  I  have  no  confession  to  make,  my 
priest;  so  be  not  curious. 

On  his  way  back  to  Edinburgh  he  goes  somewhat 
out  of  his  way  to  stop  again  at  this  inn  and  have 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  159 

another  look  at  the  handsome  chambermaid,  —  her 
name  was  Matty,  —  and  finds  that  she  has  disap- 
peared, as  handsome  chambermaids  have  a  way  of 
doing;  but  Bos  well  comforts  himself  by  reflecting 


A<. 


INSCRIPTION  IN  BOSWELL'S  COPY  OF  MASON'S   "ELFRIDA" 

that  he  can  find  mistresses  wherever  he  goes.    He 
remembers  also  that  he  had  promised  Dr.  Johnson  to 
accept  a  chest  of  books  of  the  moralist's  own  selec- 
tion, and  to  "read  more  and  drink  less." 
Again  he  writes  from  Edinburgh:  — 

I  have  talked  a  great  deal  of  my  sweet  little  mistress; 
I  am,  however,  uneasy  about  her.  Furnishing  a  house  and 
maintaining  her  with  a  maid  will  cost  me  a  great  deal  of 
money,  and  it  is  too  like  marriage,  or  too  much  a  settled 
plan  of  licentiousness;  but  what  can  I  do.^^  I  have  already 
taken  the  house,  and  the  lady  has  agreed  to  go  in  at  Whit- 
suntide; I  cannot  in  honour  draw  back.  .  .  .  Nor  am  I 
tormented  because  my  charmer  has  formerly  loved  others. 
Besides  she  is  ill-bred,  quite  a  rompish  girl.  She  debases  my 
dignity :  she  has  no  refinement,  but  she  is  very  handsome 
and  very  lively.  What  is  it  to  me  that  she  has  formerly 
loved.'*   So  have  I. 

Temple's  letters  to  Boswell  have  not  been  pre- 


160      AIMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTEsTG 

served,  but  he  appears  to  have  warned  him  of  the 
danger  of  his  course,  for  Boswell  comes  back  with,  — 

I  have  a  dear  infidel,  as  you  say;  but  don't  think  her  un- 
faithful. I  could  not  love  her  if  she  was.  There  is  a  base- 
ness in  all  deceit  which  my  soul  is  virtuous  enough  to 
abhor,  and  therefore  I  look  with  horror  on  adultery.  But 
my  amiable  mistress  is  no  longer  bound  to  him  who  was 
her  husband:  he  has  used  her  shockingly  ill;  he  has  de- 
serted her,  he  lives  with  another.  Is  she  not  then  free? 
She  is,  it  is  clear,  and  no  arguments  can  disguise  it.  She 
is  now  mine,  and  were  she  to  be  unfaithful  to  me  she  ought 
to  be  pierced  with  a  Corsican  poniard;  but  I  believe  she 
loves  me  sincerely.  She  has  done  everything  to  please 
me;  she  is  perfectly  generous,  and  would  not  hear  of  any 
present. 

Boswell  seemed  to  enjoy  equally  two  very  different 
things,  namely,  going  to  church  and  getting  drunk. 
On  Easter  Sunday  he  "attends  the  solemn  service  at 
St.  Paul's,"  and  next  day  informs  Mr.  Temple  that 
he  had  "received  the  holy  sacrament,  and  was  ex- 
alted in  piety."  But  in  the  same  letter  he  reports  that 
he  is  enjoying  "the  metropolis  to  the  full,"  and  that 
he  has  had  "too  much  dissipation." 

He  resolves  to  do  better  when  his  book  on  Corsica 
appears,  and  he  has  the  reputation  of  a  literary  man 
to  support.  Meanwhile,  he  confesses:  — 

I  last  night  unwarily  exceeded  my  one  bottle  of  old 
Hock;  and  having  once  broke  over  the  pale,  I  run  wild,  but 
I  did  not  get  drunk.  I  was,  however,  intoxicated,  and  very 
ill  next  day.  I  ask  your  forgiveness,  and  I  shall  be  more 
cautious  for  the  future.  The  drunken  manners  of  this 
country  are  very  bad. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  161 

Boswell's  affairs  with  chambermaids,  grass  widows, 
and  women  of  the  town  moved  along  simultaneously 
with  efforts  to  land  an  heiress.  He  asks  Temple  to 
help  him  in  an  affair  with  a  Miss  Blair.  Temple  did 
his  best  and  failed.  He  reported  his  failure  and  Boswell 
was  deeply  dejected  for  five  minutes;  then  he  writes: 

My  dear  friend,  suppose  what  you  please;  suppose  her 
affections  changed,  as  those  of  women  too  often  are;  sup- 
pose her  offended  at  my  Spanish  stateliness  [italics  mine]; 
suppose  her  to  have  resolved  to  be  more  reserved  and  coy 
in  order  to  make  me  more  in  love. 

Then  he  felt  that  he  must  have  a  change  of  scene, 
and  off  he  was  to  London. 

I  got  into  the  fly  at  Buckden  [he  says],  and  had  a  very 
good  journey.  An  agreeable  young  widow  nursed  me,  and 
supported  my  lame  foot  on  her  knee.  Am  I  not  fortunate 
in  having  something  about  me  that  interests  most  people 
at  first  sight  in  my  favour? 

In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  Johnson  once  wrote: 
"It  has  become  so  much  the  fashion  to  publish  let- 
ters that  in  order  to  avoid  it,  I  put  as  little  into  mine 
as  I  can."  Boswell  was  not  afraid  of  publication. 
His  fear,  as  he  said,  was  that  letters,  like  sermons, 
would  not  continue  to  attract  public  curiosity,  so  he 
spiced  his  highly.  Did  he  do  or  say  a  foolish  thing, 
he  at  once  sat  down  and  told  Temple  all  about  it, 
usually  adding  that  in  the  near  future  he  intended 
to  amend.  His  comment  on  his  contemporaries  is 
characteristic.  "Hume,"  he  says,  "told  me  that  he 
would  give  me  half-a-crown  for  every  page  of  John- 


162      AIVIENITIES  OF  BCX)K-COLLECTING 

son's  Dictionary  in  which  he  could  not  find  an  ab- 
surdity, if  I  would  give  him  half-a-crown  for  every 
page  in  which  he  could  find  one. 

He  announces  Adam  Smith's  election  to  member- 
ship in  the  famous  literary  club  by  saying:  "Smith 
is  now  of  our  club  —  it  has  lost  its  select  merit."  Of 
Gibbon  he  says:  "I  hear  nothing  of  the  publication 
of  his  second  volume.  He  is  an  ugly,  affected,  dis- 
gusting fellow,  and  poisons  our  literary  club  to  me." 

As  he  grows  older  and  considers  how  unsuccessful 
his  life  has  been,  how  he  had  failed  at  the  bar  both  in 
Scotland  and  in  London,  he  begins  to  complain.  He 
can  get  no  clients;  he  fears  that,  even  were  he  en- 
trusted with  cases,  he  would  fail  utterly. 

I  am  afraid  [he  says],  that,  were  I  to  be  tried,  I  should 
be  found  so  deficient  in  the  forms,  the  quirks  and  the 
quiddities,  which  early  habit  acquires,  that  I  should  ex- 
pose myself.  Yet  the  delusion  of  Westminster  Hall,  of 
brilliant  reputation  and  splendid  fortune  as  a  barrister, 
still  weighs  upon  my  imagination.  I  must  be  seen  in  the 
Courts,  and  must  hope  for  some  happy  openings  in  causes 
of  importance.  The  Chancellor,  as  you  observe,  has  not 
done  as  I  expected;  but  why  did  I  expect  it.'^  I  am  going 
to  put  him  to  the  test.  Could  I  be  satisfied  with  being 
Baron  of  Auchinleck,  with  a  good  income  for  a  gentleman 
in  Scotland,  I  might,  no  doubt,  be  independent.  "What 
can  be  done  to  deaden  the  ambition  which  has  ever  raged 
in  my  veins  like  a  fever  .'^ 

But  the  highest  spirits  will  sometimes  flag.  Bos- 
well,  the  friendly,  obliging,  generous  roue,  was  get- 
ting old.   He  begins  to  speak  of  the  past. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK 


163 


Do  you  remember  when  j^ou  and  I  sat  up  all  night  at 
Cambridge,  and  read  Gray  with  a  noble  enthusiasm;  when 
we  first  used  to  read  Mason's  "Elfrida,"  and  when  we 
talked  of  that  elegant  knot  of  worthies,  Gray,  Mason  and 
Walpole? 

'^Elfrida"  calls  itself  on  the  title-page,  "A  Dra- 
matic Poem  written 
on  the  model  of  the 
Ancient  Greek  Tra- 
gedy.'* I  happen  to 
own  and  value  highly 
the  very  copy  of  this 
once  famous  poem, 
which  Boswell  and 
Temple  read  together; 
on  the  fly  leaf,  un- 
der BoswelFs  signa- 
ture, is  a  character- 
istic note  in  his  bold, 
clear  hand:  "A  pres- 
ent from  my  worthy 
friend  Temple." 

He  becomes  more 
than  ever  before  the 
butt  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. He  tells  his  old 
friend  of  a  trick  which  has  been  played  on  him  — 
only  one  of  many.  He  was  staying  at  a  great  house 
crowded  with  guests. 

I  and  two  other  gentlemen  were  laid  in  one  room.  On 
Thursday  morning  my  wig  was  missing;  a  strict  search 


ELFRIDA, 


Dramatic  Poem. 


Writteo  on  the  Moon  of 


The  Ancient  Greek  Tragedy. 


By    Mr   M  A  S  O  N. 


The  SIXTH  EDITION,  Corrofted. 


LONDON; 

Prln«a  for  J.  KNAPTONin  Lud^^Screet. 
MDCCLIX. 


164      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

was  made,  all  in  vain.  I  was  obliged  to  go  all  day  in  my 
nightcap,  and  absent  myself  from  a  party  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  who  went  and  dined  with  an  Earl  on  the  banks 
of  the  lake,  a  piece  of  amusement  which  I  was  glad  to 
shun,  as  well  as  a  dance  which  they  had  at  night.  But  I 
was  in  a  ludicrous  situation.  I  suspect  a  wanton  trick, 
which  some  people  think  witty;  but  I  thought  it  very  ill- 
timed  to  one  in  my  situation. 

When  his  father  dies  and  he  comes  into  his  estates, 
he  is  deeply  in  debt;  he  hates  Scotland,  he  longs  to 
be  in  London,  to  enjoy  the  Club,  to  see  Johnson,  to 
whom  he  writes  of  his  difficulties,  asking  his  advice. 
Johnson  gives  him  just  such  advice  as  might  be 
expected. 

To  come  hither  with  such  expectations  at  the  expense  of 
borrowed  money,  which  I  find  you  know  not  where  to  bor- 
row, can  hardly  be  considered  prudent.  I  am  sorry  to  find, 
what  your  solicitations  seem  to  imply,  that  you  have  al- 
ready gone  the  length  of  your  credit.  This  is  to  set  the 
quiet  of  your  whole  life  at  hazard.  If  you  anticipate  your 
inheritance,  you  can  at  last  inherit  nothing;  all  that  you 
receive  must  pay  for  the  past.  You  must  get  a  place,  or 
pine  in  penury,  with  the  empty  name  of  a  great  estate. 
Poverty,  my  dear  friend,  is  so  great  an  evil,  that  I  cannot 
but  earnestly  enjoin  you  to  avoid  it.  Live  on  what  you 
have;  live,  if  you  can,  on  less;  do  not  borrow  either  for 
vanity  or  pleasure;  the  vanity  will  end  in  shame,  and  the 
pleasure  in  regret;  stay  therefore  at  home  till  you  have 
saved  money  for  your  journey  hither. 

His  wife  dies  and  Johnson  dies.  One  by  one  the 
props  are  pulled  from  under  him;  he  drinks,  con- 
stantly gets  drunk;  is,  in  this  condition,  knocked  down 
in  the  streets  and  robbed,  and  thinks  with  horror  of 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  165 

giving  up  his  soul,  intoxicated,  to  his  Maker.  "Oh, 
Temple,  Temple!"  he  writes,  "is  this  realizing  any 
of  the  towering  hopes  which  have  so  often  been  the 
subject  of  our  conversation  and  letters?"  At  last  he 
begins  a  letter  which  he  is  never  to  finish.  "I  would 
fain  write  you  in  my  own  hand  but  really  cannot." 
These  were  the  last  words  poor  Boswell  ever  wrote. 

But  Boswell's  life  is  chiefly  interesting  where  it 
impinges  upon  that  of  his  great  friend.  A  few  months 
after  the  famous  meeting  in  Davies's  book-shop,  he 
started  for  the  Continent,  with  the  idea,  following 
the  fashion  of  the  time,  of  studying  law  at  Utrecht, 
Johnson  accompanying  him  on  his  way  as  far  as 
Harwich. 

After  a  short  time  at  the  University,  during  which 
he  could  have  learned  nothing,  we  find  him  wander- 
ing about  Europe  in  search  of  celebrities,  —  big  game, 
—  the  hunting  of  which  was  to  be  the  chief  interest 
of  his  life.  He  succeeded  in  bagging  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  —  there  was  none  bigger,  —  and  after  a 
short  stay  in  Rome  he  turned  North,  sailing  from 
Leghorn  to  Corsica,  where  he  met  Paoli,  the  patriot, 
and  finally  returned  home,  escorting  Therese  Levas- 
seur,  Rousseau's  mistress,  as  far  a^  London.  Hume 
at  this  time  speaks  of  him  as  "a  friend  of  mine,  very 
good-humored,  very  agreeable  and  very  mad." 

Meanwhile  his  father.  Lord  Auchinleck,  who  had 
borne  with  admirable  patience  such  stories  as  had 
reached  him  of  his  son's  wild  ways,  insisted  that  it 


166      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

was  time  for  him  to  settle  down;  but  Boswell  was  too 
full  of  his  adventures  in  the  island  of  Corsica  and  his 
meeting  with  Paoli,  to  begin  drudgery  at  the  law.  His 
accounts  of  his  travels  made  him  a  welcome  guest  at 
London  dinner-parties,  and  he  had  finally  decided  to 
write  a  book  of  his  experiences. 

At  last  the  father,  by  a  threat  to  cut  off  supplies, 
secured  his  son's  return;  but  his  desire  to  publish  a 
book  had  not  abated,  and  while  he  finally  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  Scotch  bar,  we  find  him  corresponding 
with  his  friend  Mr.  Dilly,  the  publisher,  in  regard  to 
the  book  upon  which  he  was  busily  employed.  From 
an  unpublished  letter,  which  I  was  fortunate  enough 
to  secure  quite  recently  from  a  book-seller  in  New 
York,  Gabriel  Wells,  we  may  follow  Boswell  in  his 
negotiations. 

Edinburgh,  6  August,  1767. 

Sir 

I  have  received  your  letter  agreeing  to  pay  me  One  Hun- 
dred Guineas  for  the  Copy -Right  of  my  Account  of  Cor- 
sica, &c.,  the  money  to  be  due  three  months  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  work  in  London,  and  also  agreeing  that  the 
first  Edition  shall  be  printed  in  Scotland,  under  mj'^  direc- 
tion, and  a  map  of  Corsica  be  engraved  for  the  work  at 
your  Expence. 

In  return  to  which,  I  do  hereby  agree  that  you  shall  have 
the  sole  Property  of  the  said  work.  Our  Bargain  therefore 
is  now  concluded  and  I  heartily  wish  that  it  may  be  of 
advantage  to  you. 

I  am  Sir  Your  most  humble  Servant 

James  Boswell. 
To  Mr.  Dilly, 

Bookseller,  London. 


C^n-nci>^c^  ^^/-^-.TT,^    ^-^_^?^1,^  ^^5^^^ 


COPY  OF  JAMES  BOSWELL'S  AGREEMENT  WITH  MK.  DILLY,  RECITING 
THE  TERMS  AGREED  ON  FOR  THE  PUBLICATION  OF  "CORSICA" 


168      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Through  the  kindness  of  my  fellow  collector  and 
generous  friend,  Judge  Patterson  of  Philadelphia,  I 
own  an  interesting  fragment  of  a  brief  in  Bos  well's 

hand,  written  at  about 


this  period.  It  ap- 
pears therefrom  that 
Boswell  had  been  re- 
tained to  secure  the 
return  of  a  stocking- 
frame  of  the  value  of 
a  few  shillings,  which 
had  been  forcibly  car- 
ried off.  The  outcome 
of  the  litigation  is 
not  known,  but  the 
paper  bears  the  in- 
teresting indorsement, 
"This  was  the  first 
Paper  drawn  by  me  as 
an  Advocate.  James 
Boswell." 

But  I  am  allowing 

my  collector's  passion 

to  carry  me  too  far  afield.   The  preface  of  Boswell's 

"Account  of  Corsica"  closes  with  an  interesting  bit 

of  self -revelation.    He  says,  characteristically,  — 

For  my  part  I  should  be  proud  to  be  known  as  an 
author;  I  have  an  ardent  ambition  for  literary  fame;  for 
of  all  possessions  I  should  imagine  literary  fame  to  be 
the  most  valuable.  A  man  who  has  been  able  to  furnish  a 


#<?A£.  4^1^   ay7\.i^t 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  169 

book  which  has  been  approved  by  the  world  has  estab- 
lished himself  as  a  respectable  character  in  distant  so- 
ciety, without  any  danger  of  having  that  character  les- 
sened by  the  observation  of  his  weaknesses.  To  preserve 
a  uniform  dignity  among  those  who  see  us  every  day  is 
hardly  possible;  and  to  aim  at  it  must  put  us  under  the 
fetters  of  a  perpetual  restraint.  The  author  of  an  approved 
book  may  allow  his  natural  disposition  an  easy  play,  and 
yet  indulge  the  pride  of  superior  genius,  when  he  con- 
siders that  by  those  who  know  him  only  as  an  author  he 
never  ceases  to  be  respected.  Such  an  author  in  his  hours 
of  gloom  and  discontent  may  have  the  consolation  to  think 
that  his  writings  are  at  that  very  time  giving  pleasure  to 
numbers,  and  such  an  author  may  cherish  the  hope  of 
being  remembered  after  death,  which  has  been  a  great 
object  of  the  noblest  minds  in  all  ages. 

A  brief  contemporary  criticism  sums  up  the  merits 
of  *' Corsica"  in  a  paragraph.  "There  is  a  deal  about 
the  Island  and  its  dimensions  that  one  does  n't  care 
a  straw  about,  but  that  part  which  relates  to  Paoli 
is  amusing  and  interesting.  The  author  has  a  rage 
for  knowing  anybody  that  was  ever  talked  of." 

Boswell  thought  that  he  was  the  first,  but  he  proved 
to  be  the  second  Englishman  (the  first  was  an  Eng- 
lishwoman) who  had  ever  set  foot  upon  the  island. 
He  visited  Paoli,  and  his  accounts  of  his  reception  by 
the  great  patriot  and  his  conversation  with  the  peo- 
ple are  amusing  in  the  extreme.  To  his  great  satis- 
faction it  was  generally  believed  that  he  was  on  a 
public  mission. 

The  more  I  disclaimed  any  such  thing,  the  more  they 
persevered  in  affirming  it;  and  I  was  considered  as  a  very 


170      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

close  young  man.  I  therefore  just  allowed  them  to  make 
a  minister  of  me,  till  time  should  undeceive  them.  .  .  .  The 
Ambasciadore  Inglese  —  as  the  good  jjeasants  and  soldiers 
used  to  call  me  —  became  a  great  favorite  among  them. 
I  got  a  Corsican  dress  made,  in  which  I  walked  about  with 
an  air  of  true  satisfaction. 

On  another  occasion :  — 

When  I  rode  out  I  was  mounted  on  Paoli's  own  horse, 
with  rich  furniture  of  crimson  velvet,  with  broad  gold  lace, 
and  had  my  guard  marching  along  with  me.  I  allowed 
myself  to  indulge  a  momentary  pride  in  this  parade,  as  I 
was  curious  to  experience  what  should  really  be  the  pleas- 
ure of  state  and  distinction  with  which  mankind  are  so 
strangely  mtoxicated. 

The  success  of  this  publication  led  Boswell  into 
some  absurd  extravagances  which  he  thought  were 
necessary  to  support  his  position  as  a  distinguished 
English  author.  Praise  for  his  work  he  skillfully  ex- 
tracted from  most  of  his  friends,  but  Johnson  proved 
obdurate.  He  had  expressed  a  qualified  approval  of 
the  book  when  it  appeared;  but  when  Boswell  in  a 
letter  sought  more  than  this,  the  old  Doctor  charged 
him  to  empty  his  head  of  "Corsica,"  which  he  said  he 
thought  had  filled  it  rather  too  long. 

Boswell  wrote  at  least  two  of  what  we  should  to- 
day call  press  notices  of  himself.  One  is  reminded  of 
the  story  of  the  man  in  a  hired  dress-suit  at  a  charity 
ball  rushing  about  inquiring  the  whereabouts  of  the 
man  who  puts  your  name  in  the  paper.  To  such  an 
one  Boswell  presented  this  brief  account  of  himself 
on  the  occasion  of  the  famous  Shakespeare  Jubilee. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  171 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  masks  upon  this  occasion 
was  James  Boswell,  Esq.,  in  the  dress  of  an  armed  Cor- 
sican  Chief.  He  entered  the  amphitheatre  about  twelve 
o'clock.  He  wore  a  short  dark-coloured  coat  of  coarse 
cloth,  scarlet  waistcoat  and  breeches,  and  black  spatter- 
dashes; his  cap  or  bonnet  was  of  black  cloth;  on  the  front 
of  it  was  embroidered  in  gold  letters,  "Viva  la  Liberta," 
and  on  one  side  of  it  was  a  handsome  blue  feather  and 
cockade,  so  that  it  had  an  elegant  as  well  as  a  warlike  ap- 
pearance. On  the  breast  of  his  coat  was  sewed  a  Moor's 
head,  the  crest  of  Corsica,  surrounded  with  branches  of 
laurel.  He  had  also  a  cartridge-pouch  into  which  was 
stuck  a  stiletto,  and  on  his  left  side  a  pistol  was  hung  upon 
the  belt  of  his  cartridge-pouch.  He  had  a  fusee  slung 
across  his  shoulder,  wore  no  jK)wder  in  his  hair,  but  had  it 
plaited  at  full  length  with  a  knot  of  blue  ribbon  at  the  end 
of  it.  He  had,  by  way  of  staff,  a  very  curious  vine  all  of 
one  piece,  with  a  bird  finely  carved  upon  it  emblematical 
of  the  sweet  bard  of  Avon.  He  wore  no  mask,  saying  that 
it  was  not  proper  for  a  gallant  Corsican.  So  soon  as  he 
came  into  the  room  he  drew  universal  attention.  The 
novelty  of  the  Corsican  dress,  its  becoming  appearance, 
and  the  character  of  that  brave  nation  concurred  to  dis- 
tinguish the  armed  Corsican  Chief. 

May  we  not  suppose  that  several  bottles  of  "Old 
Hock"  contributed  to  his  enjoyment  of  this  occasion? 
Here  is  the  other  one :  — 

Boswell,  the  author,  is  a  most  excellent  man:  he  is  of 
an  ancient  family  in  the  West  of  Scotland,  upon  which  he 
values  himself  not  a  little.  At  his  nativity  there  appeared 
omens  of  his  future  greatness.  His  parts  are  bright,  and 
his  education  has  been  good.  He  has  travelled  in  post- 
chaises  miles  without  number.  He  is  fond  of  seeing  much 
of  the  world.  He  eats  of  every  good  dish,  especially  apple 
pie.   He  drinks  Old  Hock.  He  has  a  very  fine  temper.  He 


172      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

is  somewhat  of  a  humorist  and  a  little  tinctured  with 
pride.  He  has  a  good  manly  countenance,  and  he  owns  him- 
self to  be  amorous.  He  has  infinite  vivacity,  yet  is  ob- 
served at  times  to  have  a  melancholy  cast.  He  is  rather  fat 
than  lean,  rather  short  than  tall,  rather  young  than  old. 
His  shoes  are  neatly  made,  and  he  never  wears  spectacles. 

The  success  of  "Corsica"  was  not  very  great,  but  it 
sufficed  to  turn  Boswell's  head  completely.  He  spent 
as  much  time  in  London  as  he  could  contrive  to,  and 
led  there  the  life  of  a  dissipated  man  of  fashion.  He 
quarreled  with  his  father,  and  after  a  series  of  esca- 
pades with  women  of  the  town  and  love-affairs  with 
heiresses,  he  finally  married  his  cousin,  Margaret 
Montgomerie,  a  girl  without  a  fortune.  Much  to  Bos- 
well's disgust,  his  father,  on  the  very  same  day,  mar- 
ried for  the  second  time,  and  married  his  cousin. 

For  a  time  after  marriage  he  seemed  to  take  his 
profession  seriously,  but  he  deceived  neither  his  father 
nor  his  clients.  The  old  man  said  that  Jamie  was 
simply  taking  a  toot  on  a  new  horn.  Meanwhile 
Boswell  never  allowed  his  interest  in  Johnson  to  cool 
for  a  moment.  TMien  he  was  in  London,  —  and  he 
went  there  on  one  excuse  or  another  as  often  as  his 
means  permitted,  —  he  was  much  with  Johnson;  and 
when  he  was  at  home,  he  was  constantly  worrying 
Johnson  for  some  evidence  of  his  affection  for  him. 
Finally  Johnson  writes,  "My  regard  for  you  is  greater 
almost  than  I  have  words  to  express"  (this  from  the 
maker  of  a  dictionary);  "but  I  do  not  chuse  to  be 
always  repeating  it;  write  it  down  in  the  first  leaf  of 
your  pocketbook,  and  never  doubt  of  it  again." 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  173 

Neither  wife  nor  father  could  understand  the  feel- 
ing of  reverence  and  affection  which  their  Jamie  had 
for  Johnson.  I  always  delight  in  the  story  of  his  father 
saying  to  an  old  friend,  "There's  nae  hope  for  Jamie, 
mon.  Jamie  is  gaen  clean  gyte.  WTiat  do  you  think, 
mon?  He's  done  wi'  Paoli  —  he's  off  wi'  the  land- 
louping  scoundrel  of  a  Corsican;  and  whose  tail  do 
you  think  he  has  pinned  himself  to  now,  mon?  A 
dominie,  mon  —  an  auld  dominie :  he  keeped  a  schule, 
and  ca'd  it  an  academy." 

Mrs.  Boswell,  a  sensible,  cold,  rather  shadowy  per- 
son, saw  but  little  of  Johnson,  and  was  satisfied  that 
it  should  be  so.  There  is  one  good  story  to  her  credit. 
Unaccustomed  to  the  ways  of  genius,  she  caught  John- 
son, who  was  nearsighted,  one  evening  burnishing  a 
lighted  candle  on  her  carpet  to  make  it  burn  more 
brightly,  and  remarked,  "I  have  seen  many  a  bear  led 
by  a  man,  but  never  before  have  I  seen  a  man  led  by 
a  bear."  Boswell  was  just  the  fellow  to  appreciate 
this,  and  promptly  repeated  it  to  Johnson,  who  failed 
to  see  the  humor  of  it. 

In  1782  his  father  died  and  he  came  into  the  estate, 
but  by  his  improvident  management  he  soon  found 
himself  in  financial  diflSculties.  Johnson's  death  two 
years  later  removed  a  restraining  influence  that  he 
much  needed.  He  tried  to  practice  law,  but  he  was  un- 
successful. Never  an  abstemious  man,  he  now  drank 
heavily  and  constantly,  and  as  constantly  resolved  to 
turn  over  a  new  leaf. 

Shortly  after  Johnson's  death,  Boswell  published 


174      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

his  "Journal  of  the  Tour  of  the  Hebrides,"  which 
reached  a  third  edition  within  the  year  and  estabHshed 
his  reputation  as  a  writer  of  a  new  kind,  in  which 
anecdotes  and  conversation  are  woven  into  a  narra- 
tive with  a  fideHty  and  skill  which  were  as  easy  to 
him  as  they  were  impossible  to  others. 

The  great  success  of  this  book  encouraged  him  to 
begin,  and  continue  to  work  upon,  the  great  biography 
of  Johnson  on  which  his  fame  so  securely  rests.  Others 
had  published  before  him.  Mrs.  Piozzi's  "Anecdotes 
of  the  Late  Samuel  Johnson"  had  sold  well,  and 
Hawkins,  the  "unclubable  Knight,"  as  Johnson  called 
him,  had  been  commissioned  by  the  booksellers 
of  London  to  write  a  formal  biography,  which  ap- 
peared in  1787;  while  of  lesser  publications  there  was 
seemingly  no  end;  nevertheless,  Boswell  persevered, 
and  wrote  his  friend  Temple  that  his 

mode  of  biography  which  gives  not  only  a  history  of  John- 
son's visible  progress  through  the  world,  and  of  his  pub- 
lications, but  a  view  of  his  mind  in  his  letters  and  con- 
versations, is  the  most  perfect  that  can  be  conceived,  and 
will  be  more  of  a  life  than  any  work  that  has  yet  appeared. 

He  had  been  preparing  for  the  task  for  more  than 
twenty  years;  he  had,  in  season  and  out,  been  taking 
notes  of  Johnson's  conversations,  and  Johnson  him- 
self had  supplied  him  with  much  of  the  material. 
Thus  in  poverty,  interrupted  by  periods  of  dissipa- 
tion, amid  the  sneers  of  many,  he  continued  his  work. 
"VMiile  it  was  in  progress  his  wife  died,  and  he,  poor  fel- 
low, justly  upbraided  himself  for  his  neglect  of  her. 


DK.  JOHNSON  IN  TKAVKLINC;  DKESS.  AS  DESCKlHKlJ 
IN  HOSWELLS   TOL  K 


Kiigrai-fd  Ijij  Trotter 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  175 

Meanwhile,  a  '*new  horn"  was  presented  to  him. 
He  had,  or  thought  he  had,  a  chance  of  being  elected 
to  Parliament,  or  at  least  of  securing  a  place  under 
government;  but  in  all  this  he  was  destined  to  be  dis- 
appointed. It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  conditions 
more  unfavorable  to  sustained  effort  than  those  under 
which  Boswell  labored.  He  was  desperately  hard  up. 
Always  subject  to  fits  of  the  blues,  which  amounted 
almost  to  melancholia,  he  many  a  time  thought  of 
giving  up  the  task  from  which  he  hoped  to  derive 
fame  and  profit.  He  considered  selling  his  rights  in 
the  publication  for  a  thousand  pounds.  But  it  would 
go  to  his  heart,  he  said,  to  accept  such  a  sum;  and 
again,  "I  am  in  such  bad  spirits  that  I  have  fear  con- 
cerning it  —  I  may  get  no  profit,  nay,  may  lose  — 
the  public  may  be  disappointed  and  think  I  have  done 
it  poorly  —  I  may  make  enemies,  and  even  have 
quarrels."  Then  the  depression  would  pass  and  he 
could  write:  *'It  will  be,  without  exception,  the  most 
entertaining  book  you  ever  read."  When  his  friends 
heard  that  the  Life  would  make  two  large  volumes 
quarto,  and  that  the  price  was  two  guineas,  they 
shook  their  heads  and  Boswell's  fears  began  again. 

At  last,  on  May  16,  1791,  the  book  appeared,  with 
the  imprint  of  Charles  Dilly,  in  the  Poultry;  and 
so  successful  was  it  that  by  August  twelve  hundred 
copies  had  been  disposed  of,  and  the  entire  edition 
was  exhausted  before  the  end  of  the  year.  The  writer 
confesses  to  such  a  passion  for  this  book  that  of  this 
edition  he  owns  at  present  four  copies  in  various 


17G      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

states,  the  one  he  prizes  most  having  an  inscription 
in  Boswell's  hand:  "To  James  Boswell,  Esquire, 
Junior,  from  his  affectionate  father,  the  Authour." 
Of  other  editions  —  but  why  display  one's  weakness? 
"Should  there,"  in  Boswell's  phrase,  "be  any  cold- 
blooded and  morose  mortals  who  really  dislike  it,"  I 


am  sorry  for  them.  To  me  it  has  for  thirty  years 
been  a  never-ending  source  of  profit  —  and  pleasure, 
which  is  as  important.  It  is  a  book  to  ramble  in  — 
and  with.  I  have  never,  I  think,  read  it  through  from 
cover  to  cover,  as  the  saying  is,  but  some  day  I  will; 
meanwhile  let  me  make  a  confession.  There  are  parts 
of  it  which  are  deadly  dull;  the  judicious  reader  will 
skip  these  without  hint  from  me.  I  have,  indeed,  al- 
ways had  a  certain  sympathy  with  George  Henry 
Lewes,  who  for  years  threatened  to  publish  an  abridg- 
ment of  it.  It  could  be  done:  indeed,  the  work  could 
be  either  expanded  or  contracted  at  will;  but  every 
good  Boswellian  will  wish  to  do  this  for  himself; 
tampering  with  a  classic  is  somewhat  like  tampering 
with  a  will  —  it  is  good  form  not  to. 

What  is  really  needed  is  a  complete  index  to  the 
sayings  of  Johnson;  his  dictata,  spoken  or  written. 
It  would  be  an  heroic  task,  but  heroic  tasks  are 
constantly  being  undertaken.   My  friend  Osgood,  of 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  177 

Princeton,  a  ripe  scholar  and  an  ardent  Johnsonian, 
has  been  devoting  the  scanty  leisure  of  years  to  a 
concordance  of  Spenser.  No  one  less  competent  than 
he  should  undertake  to  supervise  such  a  labor  of  love. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Bible  is  not  lack- 
ing in  quotations,  nor  is  Shakespeare;  but  these 
sources  of  wisdom  aside,  Boswell,  quoting  Johnson, 
supplies  us  more  frequently  with  quotations  than 
any  other  author  w^hatever.  Could  the  irascible  old 
Doctor  come  to  earth  again,  and  with  that  wonderful 
memory  of  his  call  to  mind  the  purely  casual  remarks 
which  he  chanced  to  make  to  Boswell,  he  would  surely 
be  amazed  to  hear  himself  quoted,  and  to  learn 
that  his  obiter  dicta  had  become  fixed  in  the  minds 
of  countless  thousands  who  perhaps  have  never  heard 
his  name. 

I  chanced  the  other  day  to  stop  at  my  broker's 
office  to  see  how  much  I  had  lost  in  an  unexpected 
drop  in  the  market,  and  to  beguile  the  time,  picked 
up  a  market  letter  in  which  this  sentence  met  my 
eye:  "The  unexpected  and  perpendicular  decline  in 
the  stock  of  Golden  Rod  mining  shares  has  left  many 
investors  sadder  if  not  wiser.  When  will  the  public 
learn  that  investors  in  securities  of  this  class  are  only 
indulging  themselves  in  proving  the  correctness  of 
Franklin's  [sic]  adage,  that  the  expectation  of  mak- 
ing a  profit  in  such  securities  is  simply  the  triumph  of 
hope  over  experience  ?"  Good  Boswellians  will  hardly 
need  to  be  reminded  that  this  is  Dr.  Johnson  on  mar- 
riage. He  had  something  equally  wise  to  say,  too,  on 


178      AINIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

the  subject  of  "shares";  but  in  this  instance  he  was 
speaking  of  a  man's  second  venture  into  matrimony, 
his  first  having  proved  very  unhappy. 

Most  men,  when  they  write  a  book  of  memoirs  in 
which  hundreds  of  living  people  are  mentioned,  dis- 
creetly postpone  publication  until  after  they  and  the 
chief  personages  of  the  narrative  are  dead.  Johnson 
refers  to  Bolingbroke  as  a  "cowardly  scoundrel"  for 
writing  a  book  (charging  a  blunderbuss,  he  called  it) 
and  leaving  half  a  crown  to  a  beggarly  Scotchman  to 
pull  the  trigger  after  his  death.  Boswell  spent  some 
years  in  charging  his  blunderbuss;  he  filled  it  with 
shot,  great  and  small,  and  then,  taking  careful  aim, 
pulled  the  trigger. 

Cries  of  rage,  anguish,  and  delight  instantly  arose 
from  all  over  the  kingdom.  A  vast  number  of  living 
people  were  mentioned,  and  their  merits  or  failings 
discussed  with  an  abandon  which  is  one  of  the  great 
charms  of  the  book  to-day,  but  which,  when  it  ap- 
peared, stirred  up  a  veritable  hornets'  nest.  As  some 
one  very  cleverly  said,  "Boswell  has  invented  a  new 
kind  of  libel."  "A  man  who  is  dead  once  told  me  so 
and  so  "  —  what  redress  have  you  in  law.^  None !  The 
only  thing  to  do  is  to  punch  his  head. 

Fortunately  Boswell  escaped  personal  chastise- 
ment, but  he  made  many  enemies  and  alienated  some 
friends.  Mrs.  Thrale,  by  this  time  Mrs.  Piozzi,  quite 
naturally  felt  enraged  at  Boswell's  contemptuous  re- 
marks about  her,  and  at  his  references  to  what  Johnson 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  179 

said  of  her  while  he  was  enjoying  the  hospitality  of 
Streatham.  The  best  of  us  like  to  criticize  our  friends 
behind  their  backs;  and  Johnson  could  be  frank,  and 
indeed  brutal,  on  occasion.  Mrs.  Boscawen,  the  wife 
of  the  admiral,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  reason  to 
be  displeased  when  she  read:  "If  it  is  not  presumptu- 
ous in  me  to  praise  her,  I  would  say  that  her  manners 
are  the  best  of  any  lady  with  whom  I  ever  had  the 
happiness  to  be  acquainted." 

Bishop  Percy,  shrewdly  suspecting  that  Boswell's 
judgment  was  not  to  be  trusted,  when  he  complied 
with  his  request  for  some  material  for  the  Life,  de- 
sired that  his  name  might  not  be  mentioned  in  the 
work;  to  which  Boswell  replied  that  it  was  his  inten- 
tion to  introduce  as  many  names  of  eminent  persons 
as  he  could,  adding,  "Believe  me,  my  Lord,  you  are 
not  the  only  Bishop  to  grace  my  pages."  We  may 
suspect  that  he,  like  many  another,  took  up  the  book 
with  fear  and  trembling,  and  put  it  down  in  a  rage. 

Wilkes,  too,  got  a  touch  of  tar,  but  little  he  cared; 
the  best  beloved  and  the  best  hated  man  in  England, 
he  probably  laughed,  properly  thinking  that  Boswell 
could  do  little  damage  to  his  reputation.  But  what 
shall  we  say  of  Lady  Diana  Beauclerk's  feelings  w^hen 
she  read  the  stout  old  English  epithet  which  John- 
son had  applied  to  her.  Johnson's  authorized  biog- 
rapher. Sir  John  Hawkins,  dead  and  buried  "with- 
out his  shoes  and  stawkin's,"  as  the  old  jingle  goes, 
had  sneered  at  Boswell  and  passed  on;  verily  he  hath 
his  reward.    Boswell  accused  him  of  stupidity,  inac- 


180      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

curacy,  and  writing  fatiguing  and  disgusting  "rig- 
marole." His  daughter  came  to  the  rescue  of  his 
fame,  and  Boswell  and  she  had  a  lively  exchange  of 
letters;  indeed  Boswell,  at  all  times,  seemed  to  court 
that  which  most  men  shrink  from,  a  discussion  of 
questions  of  veracity  with  a  woman. 

But  on  the  whole  the  book  was  well  received,  and 
over  his  success  Boswell  exulted,  as  well  he  might;  he 
had  achieved  his  ambition,  he  had  written  his  name 
among  the  immortals.  With  its  publication  his  work 
was  done.  He  became  more  and  more  dissipated.  His 
sober  hours  he  devoted  to  schemes  for  self -reform  and 
a  revision  of  the  text  for  future  editions.  He  was  en- 
gaged on  a  third  printing  when  death  overtook  him. 
The  last  words  he  wrote  —  the  unfinished  letter  to 
his  old  friend  Temple  —  have  already  been  quoted. 
The  pen  which  he  laid  down  was  taken  up  by  his  son, 
who  finished  the  letter.  From  him  we  learn  the  sad 
details  of  his  death.  He  passed  away  on  May  19, 
1795,  in  his  fifty -fifth  year. 

Like  many  another  man,  Boswell  was  always  in- 
tending to  reform,  and  never  did.  His  practice  was 
ever  at  total  variance  with  his  principles.  In  opinions 
he  was  a  moralist;  in  conduct  he  was  —  otherwise. 
Let  it  be  remembered,  however,  that  he  was  of  a  gen- 
erous, open-hearted,  and  loving  disposition.  A  clause 
in  his  will,  written  in  his  own  hand,  sheds  important 
light  upon  his  character.  "I  do  beseech  succeeding 
heirs  of  entail  to  be  kind  to  the  tenants,  and  not  to 
turn  out  old  possessors  to  get  a  little  more  rent." 


JAMES  BOSWELL  —  HIS  BOOK  181 

What  were  the  contemporary  opinions  of  Boswell? 
Walpole  did  not  Hke  him,  but  Walpole  hked  few. 
PaoH  was  his  friend;  with  Goldsmith  and  with  Gar- 
rick  he  had  been  intimate.  Mrs.  Thrale  and  he  did 
not  get  along  well  together;  he  could  not  bear  the 
thought  that  she  saw  more  of  Johnson  than  he,  and 
he  was  jealous  of  her  influence  over  him.  Fanny 
Burney  did  not  like  him,  and  declined  to  give  him 
some  information  which  he  very  naturally  wanted 
for  his  book,  because  she  wanted  to  use  it  herself. 
Gibbon  thought  him  terribly  indiscreet,  which,  com- 
pared with  Gibbon,  he  certainly  was.  Reynolds  and 
he  were  firm  friends  —  the  great  book  is  dedicated 
to  Sir  Joshua. 

Of  Boswell,  Johnson  wrote  during  their  journey  in 
Scotland,  "There  is  no  house  where  he  is  not  received 
with  kindness  and  respect";  and  elsewhere,  "He 
never  left  a  house  without  leaving  a  wish  for  his  re- 
turn"; also,  "He  was  a  man  who  finds  himself  wel- 
come wherever  he  goes  and  makes  friends  faster  than 
he  can  want  them";  and  "He  w^as  the  best  traveling 
companion  in  the  world."  If  there  is  a  greater  test 
than  this,  I  do  not  know  it.  It  is  summering  and 
wintering  with  a  man  in  a  month.  Burke  said  of  him 
that  "good  humor  was  so  natural  to  him  as  to  be 
scarcely  a  virtue  to  him."  I  know  many  admirable 
men  of  whom  this  cannot  be  said. 

Several  years  ago,  being  in  Ayrshire,  I  found  myself 
not  far  from  Auchinleck;  and  although  I  knew  that 
Boswell's  greatest  editor,  Birkbeck  Hill,  had  experi- 


182      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

enced  a  rebuff  upon  his  attempt  to  visit  the  old  estate 
which  Johnson  had  described  as  "very  magnificent 
and  very  convenient,"  I  determined,  out  of  loyalty  to 
James  Boswell,  to  make  the  attempt.  I  thought  that 
perhaps  American  nerve  would  succeed  where  English 
scholarship  had  failed. 

We  had  spent  the  night  at  Ayr,  and  early  next 
morning  I  inquired  the  cost  of  a  motor-trip  to  take 
my  small  party  over  to  Auchinleck;  and  I  was  careful 
to  pronounce  the  word  as  though  spelled  Afflek,  as 
Boswell  tells  us  to. 

"To  where,  sir. ?^" 

"Afflek,"  I  repeated. 

The  man  seemed  dazed.    Finally  I  spelled  it  for 

him,  "A-U-C-H-I-N-L-E-C-K." 

"Ah,  sir,  Auchinleck, "  —  in  gutturals  the  types  will 
not  reproduce,  —  "that  would  be  two  guineas,  sir." 

"Very  good,"  I  said;  "pronounce  it  your  own  way, 
but  let  me  have  the  motor." 

We  were  soon  rolling  over  a  road  which  Boswell 
must  have  taken  many  times,  but  certainly  never  so 
rapidly  or  luxuriously.  How  Dr.  Johnson  would  have 
enjoyed  the  journey!  I  recalled  his  remark,  "Sir,  if  I 
had  no  duties  and  no  reference  to  futurity,  I  would 
spend  my  life  driving  briskly  in  a  post-chaise  with  a 
pretty  woman."  Futurity  w^as  not  bothering  me  and  I 
had  a  pretty  woman,  my  wife,  by  my  side.  Moreover, 
to  complete  the  Doctor's  remark,  she  was  "one  who 
could  understand  me  and  add  something  to  the  con- 
versation." We  set  out  in  high  spirits. 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — HIS  BOOK  183 

As  we  approached  the  house  by  a  fine  avenue  bor- 
dered by  venerable  trees,  —  no  doubt  those  planted 
by  the  old  laird,  who  delighted  in  such  work,  —  my 
courage  almost  failed  me;  but  I  had  gone  too  far  to 
retire.  To  the  servant  who  responded  to  my  ring 
I  stated  my  business,  which  seemed  trivial  enough. 

I  might  as  well  have  addressed  a  graven  image.  At 
last  it  spoke.  "The  family  are  away.  The  instruc- 
tions are  that  no  one  is  to  be  admitted  to  the  house 
under  pain  of  instant  dismissal." 

Means  elsewhere  successful  failed  me  here. 

"You  can  walk  in  the  park." 

"Thanks,  but  I  did  not  come  to  Scotland  to  walk 
in  a  park.  Perhaps  you  can  direct  me  to  the  church 
where  Boswell  is  buried." 

"You  will  find  the  tomb  in  the  kirk  in  the  village." 

Coal  has  been  discovered  on  the  estate,  and  the 
village,  a  mile  or  two  away,  is  ugly,  and,  to  judge  from 
the  number  of  places  where  beer  and  spirits  could  be 
had,  their  consumption  would  seem  to  be  the  chief 
occupation  of  the  population.  I  found  the  kirk,  with 
door  securely  locked.  Would  I  try  for  the  key  at  the 
minister's.'^  I  would;  but  the  minister  was  away  for 
the  day.  Would  I  try  the  sexton?  I  would;  but  he, 
too,  was  away,  and  I  found  myself  in  the  midst  of 
a  crowd  of  barefooted  children  who  embarrassed  me 
by  their  profitless  attentions.  It  was  cold  and  it  be- 
gan to  rain.  I  remembered  that  we  were  not  far  from 
Greenock  where  "when  it  does  not  rain,  it  snaws." 

My  visit  had  not  been  a  success.    I  cannot  rec- 


184      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

ommend  a  Boswell  pilgrimage.  I  wished  that  I  was 
in  London,  and  bethought  me  of  Johnson's  remark 
that  *'the  noblest  prospect  in  Scotland  is  the  high- 
road that  leads  to  England."  On  that  high-road  my 
party  made  no  objection  to  setting  out. 

I  once  heard  an  eminent  college  professor  speak 
disparagingly  of  Boswell's  *'Life  of  Johnson,"  saying 
that  it  was  a  mere  literary  slop-pail  into  which  Bos- 
well dropped  scraps  of  all  kinds  —  gossip,  anecdotes 
and  scandal,  literary  and  biographical  refuse  generally. 
I  stood  aghast  for  a  moment;  then  my  commercial 
instinct  awakened.  I  endeavored  to  secure  this  nug- 
get of  criticism  in  writing,  with  permission  to  publish 
it  over  the  author's  name.  In  vain  I  offered  a  rate 
per  word  that  would  have  aroused  the  envy  of  a  Kip- 
ling. My  friend  pleaded  "writer's  cramp,"  or  made 
some  other  excuse,  and  it  finally  appeared  that,  after 
all,  this  was  only  one  of  the  cases  where  I  had  neg- 
lected, in  Boswell's  phrase,  to  distinguish  between 
talk  for  the  sake  of  victory  and  talk  with  the  desire 
to  inform  and  illustrate.  Against  this  opinion  there  is 
a  perfect  chorus  of  praise  rendered  by  a  full  choir.  ^ 

*  The  original  of  the  portrait  opposite  was  owned  by  Boswell,  who 
used  the  engraving  as  the  frontispiece  of  his  "  Life  of  Johnson."  Now  in 
the  Johnson  collection  of  Robert  B.  Adam,  Esq.,  of  Buffalo.  There 
is  a  proof  plate  with  an  inscription  in  Boswell's  hand:  "This  is  the 
first  impression  of  the  Plate  after  Mr.  Heath  the  engraver  thought  it 
was  finished.  He  went  with  me  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  who  suggested 
that  the  countenance  was  too  young  and  not  thoughtful  enough.  Mr. 
Heath  thereup<m  altered  it  so  much  to  its  advantage  that  Sir  Joshua 
was  quite  satisfie<l  and  Heath  then  saw  such  a  difference  that  he  said 
he  would  not  for  a  hundred  pounds  have  had  it  remain  as  it  was." 


SAMUEL  JOHNSOX 

Painted  by  Sir  J.  lieynoUls.    Kikj raved  by  Heath 


JAMES  BOSWELL  — mS  BOOK  185 

The  great  scholar  Jowett  confessed  that  he  had 
read  the  book  fifty  times.  Carlyle  said,  "Boswell  has 
given  more  pleasure  than  any  other  man  of  this  time, 
and  perhaps,  two  or  three  excepted,  has  done  the 
world  greater  service."  Lowell  refers  to  the  "Life"  as 
a  perfect  granary  of  discussion  and  conversation. 
Leslie  Stephen  says  that  his  fondness  for  reading  be- 
gan and  would  end  with  Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson." 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  wrote:  "I  am  taking  a  little 
of  Boswell  daily  by  way  of  a  Bible.  I  mean  to  read 
him  now  until  the  day  I  die."  It  is  one  of  the  few 
classics  which  is  not  merely  talked  about  and  taken 
as  read,  but  is  constantly  being  read;  and  I  love  to 
think  that  perhaps  not  a  day  goes  by  when  some  one, 
somewhere,  does  not  open  the  book  for  the  first  time 
and  become  a  confirmed  Boswellian. 

"What  a  wonderful  thing  your  English  literature 
is ! "  a  learned  Hungarian  once  said  to  me.  "You  have 
the  greatest  drama,  the  greatest  poetry,  and  the  great- 
est fiction  in  the  world,  and  you  are  the  only  nation 
that  has  any  biography."  The  great  English  epic  is 
Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson." 


^y9^  y^^^-f^^/^ 


VII 

A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING 

Sometime,  when  seated  in  your  library,  as  it  becomes 
too  dark  to  read  and  is  yet  too  light,  —  to  ring  for 
candles,  I  was  going  to  say,  but  nowadays  we  simply 
touch  a  button,  —  let  your  thoughts  wander  over  the 
long  list  of  women  who  have  made  for  themselves  a 
place  in  English  literature,  and  see  if  you  do  not  agree 
with  me  that  the  woman  you  would  like  most  to  meet 
in  the  flesh,  were  it  possible,  would  be  Mrs.  Piozzi, 
born  Hester  Lynch  Salusbury,  but  best  known  to  us 
as  Mrs.  Thrale. 

Let  us  argue  the  matter.  It  may  at  first  seem  almost 
absurd  to  mention  the  wife  of  the  successful  London 
brewer,  Henry  Thrale,  in  a  list  which  would  include 
the  names  of  Fanny  Burney,  Jane  Austen,  George 
Eliot,  the  Brontes,  and  Mrs.  Browning;  but  the  wo- 
man I  have  in  mind  should  unite  feminine  charm 
with  literary  gifts:  she  should  be  a  woman  whom  you 
would  honestly  enjoy  meeting  and  whom  you  would 
be  glad  to  find  yourself  seated  next  to  at  dinner. 

The  men  of  the  Johnsonian  circle  affected  to  love 
"little  Burney,"  but  was  it  not  for  the  pleasure  her 
"Evelina"  gave  them  rather  than  for  anything  in 
the  author  herself.'^  According  to  her  own  account, 
she  was  so  easily  embarrassed  as  to  be  always  "retir- 


^^^-iatrEs^as*''^*^ 


r'yrn^- ': 


//^^^ 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  187 

ing  in  confusion,"  or  *'on  the  verge  of  swooning."  It 
is  possible  that  we  would  find  this  rather  limp  young 
lady  a  trifle  tiresome. 

Jane  Austen  was  actually  as  shy  and  retiring  as 
Fanny  Burney  affected  to  be.  She  could  hardly  have 
presided  gracefully  in  a  drawing-room  in  a  cathedral 
city;  much  less  would  she  have  been  at  home  among 
the  wits  in  a  salon  in  London. 

Of  George  Eliot  one  would  be  inclined  to  say,  as 
Dr.  Johnson  said  of  Burke  when  he  w^as  ill,  "If  I 
should  meet  Burke  now  it  would  kill  me."  Perhaps 
it  would  not  kill  one  to  meet  George  Eliot,  but  I  sus- 
pect few  men  would  care  for  an  hour's  tete-a-tete  with 
her  without  a  preliminary  oiling  of  their  mental  ma- 
chinery —  a  hateful  task. 

The  Brontes  were  geniuses  undoubtedly,  partic- 
ularly Emily,  but  one  would  hardly  select  the  author 
of  '*  Wuthering  Heights"  as  a  companion  for  a  social 
evening. 

Mrs.  Browning,  with  her  placid  smile  and  tiresome 
ringlets,  was  too  deeply  in  love  with  her  husband. 
After  all,  the  woman  one  enjoys  meeting  must  be 
something  of  a  woman  of  the  world.  She  need  not 
necessarily  be  a  good  wife  or  mother.  We  are  pro- 
vided with  the  best  of  wives  and  at  the  moment  are 
not  on  the  lookout  for  a  good  mother. 

It  may  at  once  be  admitted  that  as  a  mother  Mrs. 
Thrale  was  not  a  conspicuous  success;  but  she  was  a 
woman  of  charm,  with  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body. 
Although  she  could  be  brilliant  in  conversation,  she 


188      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

would  let  you  take  the  lead  if  you  were  able  to;  but 
she  was  quite  prepared  to  take  it  herself  rather  than 
let  the  conversation  flag;  and  she  must  have  been 
a  very  exceptional  woman,  to  steady,  as  she  did,  a 
somewhat  roving  husband,  to  call  Dr.  Johnson  to 
order,  and  upon  occasion  to  reprove  Burke,  even  while 
entertaining  the  most  brilliant  society  of  which  Lon- 
don at  the  period  could  boast. 

At  the  time  when  we  first  make  her  acquaintance, 
she  was  young  and  pretty,  the  mistress  of  a  luxurious 
establishment;  and  if  she  was  not  possessed  of  lit- 
erary gifts  herself,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  she  was 
the  cause  of  literature  in  others. 

In  these  days,  when  women,  having  everything 
else,  want  the  vote  also  (and  I  would  give  it  to  them 
promptly  and  end  the  discussion),  it  may  be  sug- 
gested that  to  shine  by  a  reflected  light  is  to  shine 
not  at  all.  Frankly,  Mrs.  Thrale  owes  her  position  in 
English  letters,  not  to  anything  important  that  she 
herself  did  or  was  capable  of  doing,  but  to  the  emi- 
nence of  those  she  gathered  about  her.  But  her  posi- 
tion is  not  the  less  secure;  she  was  a  charming  and 
fluffy  person;  and  as  firmly  as  I  believe  that  women 
have  come  to  stay,  so  firmly  am  I  of  the  opinion  that, 
in  spite  of  all  the  well-meaning  efforts  of  some  of  their 
sex  to  prevent  it,  a  certain,  and,  thank  God,  sufficient 
number  of  women  will  stay  charming  and  fluffy  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter. 

On  one  subject  only  could  Mrs.  Thrale  be  tedious 
—  her  pedigree.    I  have  it  before  me,  written  in  her 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  189 

own  bold  hand,  and  I  confess  that  it  seems  very  ex- 
alted indeed.  She  would  not  have  been  herself  had 
she  not  stopped  in  transcribing  it  to  relate  how  one 
of  her  ancestors,  Katherine  Tudor  de  Berayne,  cousin 
and  ward  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  a  famous  heiress, 
as  she  was  returning  from  the  grave  of  her  first  hus- 
band, Sir  John  Salusbury,  was  asked  in  marriage  by 
Maurice  Wynne  of  Gwydir,  who  was  amazed  to  learn 
that  he  was  too  late,  as  she  had  already  engaged  her- 
self to  Sir  Richard  Clough.  "But,"  added  the  lady, 
"if  in  the  providence  of  God  I  am  unfortunate  enough 
to  survive  him,  I  consent  to  be  the  lady  of  Gwydir." 
Nor  does  the  tale  end  here,  for  she  married  yet  an- 
other, and  having  sons  by  all  four  husbands,  she  came 
to  be  called  "Mam  y  Cymry,"  — Mother  of  Wales, 

—  and  no  doubt  she  deserved  the  appellation. 
With  such  marrying  blood  in  her  veins  it  is  easily 

understood  that,  as  soon  as  Thrale's  halter  was  off 
her  neck,  —  this  sporting  phrase,  I  regret  to  say,  is 
Dr.  Johnson's,  —  she  should  think  of  marrying  again; 
and  that  having  the  first  time  married  to  please  her 
family,  she  should,  at  the  second  venture,  marry  to 
please  herself.  But  this  chapter  is  moving  too  rapidly 

—  the  lady  is  not  yet  born. 

Hester  Lynch  Salusbury 's  birthplace  was  Bodvel, 
in  Wales,  and  the  year,  1741.  She  was  an  only  child, 
very  precocious,  with  a  retentive  memory.  She  soon 
became  the  plaything  of  the  elderly  people  around 
her,  who  called  her  "Fiddle."     Her  father  had  the 


190      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

reputation  of  being  a  scamp,  and  it  fell  to  her  uncle's 
lot  to  direct,  somewhat,  her  education.  Handed  from 
one  relation  to  another,  she  quickly  adapted  herself 
to  her  surroundings.  Her  mother  taught  her  French; 
a  tutor,  Latin;  Quin,  the  actor,  taught  her  to  recite; 
Hogarth  painted  her  portrait;  and  the  grooms  of  her 
grandmother,  whom  she  visited  occasionally,  made 
her  an  accomplished  horsewoman.  In  those  days 
education  for  a  woman  was  highly  irregular,  but  judg- 
ing from  the  results  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Thrale  and 
her  friends,  who  shall  say  that  it  was  ineffective.^  We 
have  no  Elizabeth  Carters  nowadays,  good  at  trans- 
lating Epictetus,  and  —  w^e  have  it  on  high  authority 
—  better  at  making  a  pudding. 

Study  soon  became  little  Hester's  delight.  At 
twelve  years  she  wrote  for  the  newspapers;  also,  she 
used  to  rise  at  four  in  the  morning  to  study,  which  her 
mother  would  not  have  allowed  had  she  known  of  it. 
I  have  a  letter  written  many  years  afterwards  in  which 
she  says:  "My  mother  always  told  me  I  ruined  my 
Figure  and  stopt  my  Growth  by  sitting  too  long  at  a 
Writing  Desk,  though  ignorant  how  much  Time  I 
spent  at  it.  Dear  Madam,  was  my  saucy  Answer,  — 

"Tho'  I  could  reach  from  Pole  to  Pole 
And  grasp  the  Ocean  with  my  Span, 
I  would  be  measur'd  by  my  Soul. 

The  mind 's  the  Standard  of  the  Man." 

She  is  quoting  Dr.  Watts  from  memory  evidently, 
and  improving,  perhaps,  upon  the  original. 

But  little  girls  grow  up  and  husbands  must  be 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  191 

found  for  them.  Henry  Thrale,  the  son  of  a  rich  South- 
wark  brewer,  was  brought  forward  by  her  uncle;  while 
her  father,  protesting  that  he  would  not  have  his  only 
child  exchanged  for  a  barrel  of  "  bitter,"  fell  into  a  rage 
and  died  of  an  apoplexy.  Her  dot  was  provided  by  the 
uncle;  her  mother  did  the  courting,  with  little  opposi- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  lady  and  no  enthusiasm  on  the 
part  of  the  suitor.  So,  without  love  on  either  side,  she 


being  twenty-two  and  her  husband  thirty -five,  she 
became  Mrs.  Thrale.  "My  uncle,"  she  records  in  her 
journal,  "went  with  us  to  the  church,  gave  me  away^ 
dined  with  us  at  Streatham  after  the  ceremony,  and 
then  left  me  to  conciliate  as  best  I  could  a  husband 
who  had  never  thrown  away  five  minutes  of  his  time 
upon  me  unwitnessed  by  company  till  after  the  wed- 
ding day  was  done." 

More  happiness  came  from  this  marriage  than  might 
have  been  expected.  Henry  Thrale,  besides  his  sub- 
urban residence,  Streatham,  had  two  other  estab- 
lishments, one  adjoining  the  brewery  in  Southwark, 
where  he  lived  in  winter,  and  another,  an  unpreten- 
tious villa  at  the  seaside.  He  also  maintained  a  stable 


192      AAIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

of  horses  and  a  pack  of  hounds  at  Croydon;  but, 
although  a  good  horsewoman,  Mrs.  Thrale  was  not 
permitted  to  join  her  husband  in  his  equestrian  di- 
versions; indeed,  her  place  in  her  husband's  estab- 
lishment was  not  unlike  that  of  a  woman  in  a  seraglio. 
She  was  allowed  few  pleasures,  and  but  one  duty  was 
impressed  upon  her,  namely,  that  of  supplying  an 
heir  to  the  estate;  to  this  duty  she  devoted  herself 
unremittingly. 

In  due  time  a  child  was  born,  a  daughter;  and  while 
this  was  of  course  recognized  as  a  mistake,  it  was 
believed  to  be  one  which  could  be  corrected. 

Meanwhile  Thrale  was  surprised  to  find  that  his 
wife  could  think  and  talk  —  that  she  had  a  mind  of 
her  own.  The  discovery  dawned  slowly  upon  him,  as 
did  the  idea  that  the  pleasure  of  living  in  the  country 
may  be  enhanced  by  hospitality.  Finally  the  doors  of 
Streatham  Park  were  thrown  open.  For  a  time  her 
husband's  bachelor  friends  and  companions  were  the 
only  company.  Included  among  these  was  one  Arthur 
Murphy,  who  had  been  un  maitre  de  plaisir  to  Henry 
Thrale  in  the  gay  days  before  his  marriage,  when  they 
had  frequented  the  green  rooms  and  Ranelagh  to- 
gether. It  was  Murphy  who  suggested  that  "Dic- 
tionary Johnson"  might  be  secured  to  enliven  a  din- 
ner-party, and  then  followed  some  discussion  as  to 
the  excuse  which  should  be  given  Johnson  for  inviting 
him  to  the  table  of  the  rich  brewer.  It  was  finally  sug- 
gested that  he  be  invited  to  meet  a  minor  celebrity, 
James  Woodhouse,  the  shoemaker  poet. 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  193 

Johnson  rose  to  the  bait,  —  Johnson  rose  easily  to 
any  bait  which  would  provide  him  a  good  dinner  and 
lift  him  out  of  himself,  —  and  the  dinner  passed  off 
successfully.  Mrs.  Thrale  records  that  they  all  liked 
each  other  so  well  that  a  dinner  was  arranged  for  the 
following  week,  without  the  shoemaker,  who,  having 
served  his  purpose,  disappears  from  the  record. 

And  now,  and  for  twenty  years  thereafter,  we  find 
Johnson  enjoying  the  hospitality  of  the  Thrales, 
which  opened  for  him  a  new  world.  When  he  was 
taken  ill,  not  long  after  the  introduction,  Mrs.  Thrale 
called  on  him  in  his  stuffy  lodgings  in  a  court  off 
Fleet  Street,  and  suggested  that  the  air  of  Streatham 
would  be  good  for  him.  Would  he  come  to  them.^^  He 
would.  He  was  not  the  man  to  deny  himself  the  care 
of  a  young,  rich,  and  charming  woman,  who  would 
feed  him  well,  understand  him,  and  add  to  the  joys 
of  conversation.  From  that  time  on,  whether  at  their 
residence  in  Deadman's  Place  in  Southwark,  or  at 
Streatham,  or  at  Brighton,  even  on  their  journeys, 
the  Thrales  and  Johnson  were  constantly  together; 
and  when  he  went  on  a  journey  alone,  as  was  some- 
times the  case,  he  wrote  long  letters  to  his  mistress 
or  his  master,  as  he  affectionately  called  his  friends. 

Who  gained  most  by  this  intercourse.^  It  would  be 
hard  to  say.  It  is  a  fit  subject  for  a  debate,  a  copy  of 
Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson"  to  go  to  the  successful 
contestant.  Johnson  summed  up  his  obligations  to 
the  lady  in  the  famous  letter  written  just  before  her 
second  marriage,  probably  the  last  he  ever  wrote  her. 


194      A3IENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

*'I  wish  that  God  may  grant  you  every  blessing,  that 
you  may  be  happy  in  this  world  .  .  .  and  eternally 
happy  in  a  better  state;  and  whatever  I  can  contribute 
to  your  happiness  I  am  ready  to  repay  for  that  kind- 
ness which  soothed  twenty  years  of  a  life  radically 
wretched." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Thrales  secured  what,  per- 
haps unconsciously,  they  most  desired,  social  posi- 
tion and  distinction.  At  Streatham  they  entertained 
the  best,  if  not  perhaps  the  very  highest,  society  of 
the  time.  Think  for  a  moment  of  the  intimates  of  this 
house,  whose  portraits,  painted  by  Reynolds,  hung 
in  the  library.  There  were  my  Lords  Sandys  and 
Westcote,  college  friends  of  Thrale;  there  were  John- 
son and  Goldsmith;  Garrick  and  Burke;  Burney,  and 
Reynolds  himself,  and  a  number  of  others,  all  from 
the  brush  of  the  great  master;  and  could  we  hear  the 
voices  which  from  time  to  time  might  have  been 
heard  in  the  famous  room,  we  should  recognize  Bos- 
well  and  Piozzi,  Baretti,  and  a  host  of  others;  and 
would  it  be  necessary  for  the  servant  to  announce  the 
entrance  of  the  great  Mrs.  Siddons,  or  Mrs.  Garrick, 
or  Fanny  Burney,  or  Hannah  More,  or  Mrs.  ^lon- 
tagu,  or  any  of  the  other  ladies  who  later  formed  that 
famous  coterie  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  Blue- 
Stockings? 

But  Johnson  was  the  Thrales'  first  lion  and  re- 
mained their  greatest.  He  first  gave  Streatham  parties 
distinction.  The  master  of  the  house  enjoyed  having 
the  wits  about  him,  but  was  not  one  himself.  Johnson 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  195 

said  of  him  that  "his  mind  struck  the  hours  very 
regularly  but  did  not  mark  the  minutes."  It  was  his 
wife  who,  by  her  sprightliness  and  her  wit  and  readi- 
ness, kept  the  ball  rolling,  showing  infinite  tact  and 
skill  in  drawing  out  one  and,  when  necessary,  re- 
pressing another;  asking  —  when  the  Doctor  w^as  not 
speaking  —  for  a  flash .  of  silence  from  the  company 
that  a  newcomer  might  be  heard. 

But  I  am  anticipating.  All  this  was  not  yet.  A 
salon  such  as  she  created  at  Streatham  Park  is  not 
the  work  of  a  month  or  of  a  year. 

If  Mrs.  Thrale  had  ever  entertained  any  illusions 
as  to  her  husband's  regard  for  her,  they  must  have 
received  a  shock  when  she  discovered,  as  she  soon  did, 
that  Mr.  Thrale  had  previously  offered  his  hand  to 
several  ladies,  coupling  with  his  proposal  the  fact  that, 
in  the  event  of  its  being  accepted,  he  would  expect  to 
live  for  a  portion  of  each  year  in  his  house  adjoining 
the  brewery.  The  famous  brewery  is  now  Barclay 
&  Perkins's,  and  still  stands  on  its  original  site,  where 
the  Globe  Theatre  once  stood,  not  far  from  the 
Surrey  end  of  Southwark  Bridge.  A  more  unattrac- 
tive place  of  residence  it  would  be  hard  to  imagine, 
but  for  some  reason  Mr.  Thrale  loved  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  Streatham  w^as  delightful.  It 
was  a  fine  estate,  something  over  an  hour's  drive  from 
Fleet  Street  in  the  direction  of  Croydon.  The  house, 
a  mansion  of  white  stucco,  stood  in  a  park  of  more 
than  a  hundred  acres,  beautifully  wooded.  Drives 
and  gravel-walks  gave  easy  access  to  all  parts  of  the 


196      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

grounds.  There  was  a  lake  with  a  drawbridge,  and 
conservatories,  and  glass  houses  stocked  with  fine 
fruits.  Grapes,  peaches,  and  pineapples  were  grown 
in  abundance,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  whose  appetite  was 
robust,  was  able  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  to  in- 
dulge himself  in  these  things  to  his  heart's  content. 
In  these  delightful  surroundings  the  Thrales  spent  the 
greater  part  of  each  year,  and  here  assembled  about 
them  a  coterie  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  distinguished 
as  that  which  made  Holland  House  famous  half  a 
century  later. 

A  few  years  ago  Barrie  wrote  a  delightful  play, 
*'\Vhat  Every  Woman  Knows";  and  I  hasten  to  say, 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  have  not  seen  this  play, 
that  what  every  woman  knows  is  how  to  manage  a 
husband.  In  this  respect  Mrs.  Thrale  had  no  superior. 
Making  due  allowance,  the  play  suggests  the  rela- 
tionship of  the  Thrales.  A  cold,  self-contained,  and 
commonplace  man  is  married  to  a  sprightly  and  en- 
gaging wife.  With  her  to  aid  him,  he  is  able  so  to  carry 
himself  that  people  take  him  for  a  man  of  great  abil- 
ity; without  her,  he  is  utterly  lost.  To  give  point  to 
the  play,  the  husband  is  obliged  to  make  this  painful 
discovery.  Mrs.  Thrale,  mercifully,  never  permitted 
her  husband  to  discover  how  commonplace  he  was. 
Could  he  have  looked  in  her  diary  he  might  have 
read  this  description  of  himself,  and,  had  he  read  it, 
he  would  probably  have  made  no  remark.  He  spoke 
little. 

"Mr.   Thrale's   sobriety,  and  the  decency  of  his 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  197 

conversation,  being  wholly  free  from  all  oaths,  rib- 
aldry and  profaneness,  make  him  exceedingly  comfort- 
able to  live  with;  while  the  easiness  of  his  temper  and 
slowness  to  take  offence  add  greatly  to  his  value  as  a 
domestic  man.  Yet  I  think  his  servants  do  not  love 
him,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  his  children  have  much  af- 
fection for  him.  With  regard  to  his  wife,  though  little 
tender  of  her  person,  he  is  very  partial  to  her  under- 
standing; but  he  is  obliging  to  nobody,  and  confers 
a  favor  less  pleasingly  than  many  a  man  refuses  one." 
Elsewhere  she  refers  to  him  as  the  handsomest  man 
in  London,  by  whom  she  has  had  thirteen  children, 
two  sons  and  eleven  daughters.  Both  sons  and  all 
but  three  of  the  daughters  died  either  in  infancy  or 
in  early  childhood.  Constantly  in  that  condition  in 
which  ladies  wish  to  be  who  love  their  lords,  Mrs. 
Thrale,  by  her  advice  and  efforts,  once,  at  least,  saved 
her  husband  from  bankruptcy,  and  frequently  from 
making  a  fool  of  himself.  She  grew  to  take  an  intel- 
ligent interest  in  his  business  affairs,  urged  him  to 
enter  Parliament,  successfully  electioneered  for  him, 
and  in  return  was  treated  with  just  that  degree  of 
affection  that  a  man  might  show  to  an  incubator 
which,  although  somewhat  erratic  in  its  operations, 
might  at  any  time  present  him  with  a  son. 

Such  was  the  household  of  which  Dr.  Johnson  be- 
came a  member,  and  which,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, became  his  home.  Retaining  his  lodgings  in  a 
court  off  Fleet  Street,  he  established  in  them  what 


198      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Mrs.  Thrale  called  his  menagerie  of  old  women:  de- 
pendents too  poor  and  wretched  to  find  asylum  else- 
where. To  them  he  was  at  all  times  considerate,  if 
not  courteous.  It  was  his  custom  to  dine  with  them 
two  or  three  times  each  week,  thus  insuring  them 
an  ample  dinner;  but  the  library  at  Streatham  was 
especially  devoted  to  his  service.  When  he  could  be 
induced  to  work  on  his  "Lives  of  the  Poets,"  it  be- 
came his  study;  but  for  the  most  part  it  was  his  arena, 
where,  in  playful  converse  or  in  violent  discussion,  he 
held  his  own  against  all  comers. 

In  due  time,  under  the  benign  influence  of  the 
Thrales,  he  overcame  his  repugnance  to  clean  linen. 
Mr.  Thrale  suggested  silver  buckles  for  his  shoes,  and 
he  bought  them.  As  he  entered  the  drawing-room,  a 
servant  might  have  been  seen  clapping  on  his  head  a 
wig  which  had  not  been  badly  singed  by  a  midnight 
candle  as  he  tore  the  heart  out  of  a  book.  The  great 
bear  became  bearable.  One  of  his  most  intimate 
friends,  Baretti,  a  highly  cultivated  man,  was  secured 
as  a  tutor  for  the  Thrale  children,  of  whom  the  eldest, 
nicknamed  "Queenie,"  was  Johnson's  favorite. 

Henry  Thrale's  table  was  one  of  the  best  in  London. 
By  degrees  it  became  known  that  at  Streatham  one 
might  always  be  sure  of  an  excellent  dinner  and  the 
best  conversation  in  England.  Dr.  Johnson  voiced, 
not  only  his  own,  but  the  general  opinion,  that  to 
smile  with  the  wise  and  to  feed  with  the  rich  was  very 
close  upon  human  felicity;  and  he  would  have  ad- 
mitted, had  his  attention  been  called  to  it,  that  there 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING 


199 


was  at  least  one  house  in  London  in  which  people 
could  enjoy  themselves  as  much  as  at  a  capital  inn. 
And  people  did.  For  the  best  description  of  life 
at  Streatham  we  must 
turn  to  the  pages  of 
Fanny  Burney  (Ma- 
dame d'Arblay).  Her 
diary  is  a  work  of  art, 
but  that  part  of  it 
which  pleases  most  is 
where  the  art  is  so  con- 
cealed that  one  feels 
that  the  daily  entries 
are  intended  for  no 
other  eye  than  the  wri- 
ter's. It  is  its  confiden- 
tial character  which  is 
its  greatest  charm.  As 
the  years  pass,  it  loses 
this  quality,  and  to  the 
extent  that  it  does  so  it 
becomes  less  interest- 
ing to  us.  "Evelina" 
has  just  been  published 
and  Fanny  has  become  a  welcome  guest  at  the 
Thrales'  when  the  record  opens.  "I  have  now  to 
write  an  account  of  the  most  consequential  day  I 
have  spent  since  my  birth;  namely,  my  Streatham 
visit,"  is  an  early  entry.  Johnson  is  there  and  "is 
very  proud  to  sit  by  Miss  Burney  at  dinner."   Mrs. 


EVELINA, 

OR,    A 

YOUNG     LADY'S 

E  NTRA  N  C  E 

tJITO    TH» 

WORLD* 

VOL.      L 

LONDON: 

Printed  for  T.  Lowndes,  N'  77,   in 
Fleet-Street. 

Mi>ic:x.\\uii 

200      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Thrale,  described  as  a  very  pretty  woman,  gay  and 
agreeable,  without  a  trace  of  pedantry,  repeats  some 
lines  in  French,  and  Dr.  Johnson  quotes  Latin  which 
Mrs.  Thrale  turns  into  excellent  English. 

Then  the  talk  is  of  Garrick,  who,  some  one  says, 
appears  to  be  getting  old,  on  which  Johnson  remarks 
that  it  must  be  remembered  that  his  face  has  had 
more  wear  and  tear  than  any  other  man's.  Then  Mrs. 
Montagu  is  mentioned,  and  the  merits  of  her  book  on 
Shakespeare  are  discussed,  and  Reynolds  and  his  art, 
and  finally  the  talk  drifts  back  again  to  "Evelina,'* 
and  Dr.  Johnson,  stimulated  by  the  gayety  of  an 
excellent  dinner  in  such  surroundings,  cries,  "Harry 
Fielding  never  drew  so  good  a  character.  .  .  .  There 
is  no  character  better  drawn  anywhere  —  in  any 
book,  by  any  author";  and  Fanny  pinches  herself  in 
delight,  under  the  table,  as  she  had  a  right  to  do,  for 
was  not  the  great  Cham  of  literature  praising  her? 

And  so  with  talks  and  walks  and  drives  and  din- 
ners and  tea-drinkings  unceasing,  with  news,  gossip, 
and  scandal  at  retail,  wholesale,  and  for  exportation, 
it  was  contrived  that  life  at  Streatham  was  as  de- 
lightful as  life  can  be  made  to  be.  Occasionally  there 
was  work  to  be  done.  Dr.  Johnson  was  called  on  for 
an  introduction  to  something,  or  the  proof-sheets  of 
"The  Lives  of  the  Poets"  arrived,  and  it  became  Mrs. 
Thrale's  duty  to  keep  the  Doctor  up  to  his  work  — 
no  easy  task  when  a  pretty  woman  was  around,  and 
there  were  always  several  at  Streatham.  Breakfast 
was  always  served  in  the  library,  and  tea  was  pouring 


MRS.  THRALE'S  BREAKFAST -TABLE 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  201 

incessantly.  Thanks  to  Boswell  and  to  "Little  Bur- 
ney,"  we  know  this  life  better  than  we  know  any  other 
whatever;  and  what  life  elsewhere  is  so  intimate  and 
personal,  so  well  worth  knowing? 

One  morning  Mrs.  Thrale,  entering  the  library  and 
finding  Johnson  there,  complained  that  it  was  her 
birthday,  and  that  no  one  had  sent  her  any  verses. 
She  admitted  to  being  thirty -five,  yet  Swift,  she  said, 
fed  Stella  with  them  till  she  was  forty-six.  Thereupon 
Johnson  without  hesitation  began  to  compose  aloud, 
and  Mrs.  Thrale  to  write  at  his  dictation,  — 

"Oft  in  danger,  yet  alive, 
We  are  come  to  thirty -five; 
Long  may  better  years  arrive. 
Better  years  than  thirty -five. 
Could  philosophers  contrive 
Life  to  stop  at  thirty-five, 
Time  his  hours  should  never  drive 
O'er  the  bounds  of  thirty-five. 
High  to  soar,  and  deep  to  dive. 
Nature  gives  at  thirty-five. 
Ladies,  stock  and  tend  your  hive. 
Trifle  not  at  thirty -five; 
For  howe'er  we  boast  and  strive, 
Life  decHnes  from  thirty-five: 
He  that  ever  hopes  to  thrive 
Must  begin  by  thirty-five; 
And  all  who  wisely  wish  to  wive 
Must  look  on  Thrale  at  thirty-five,"  — 

adding,  as  he  concluded,  "And  now,  my  dear,  you 
see  what  it  is  to  come  for  poetry  to  a  dictionary- 
maker.  You  may  observe  that  the  rhymes  run  in 
alphabetical  order  exactly." 

But  life  is  not  all  cakes  and  ale.  Mr.  Thrale's  ample 


202      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

income  was  constantly  in  jeopardy  from  his  business 
speculations.  He  was  led  by  a  charlatan  to  spend  a 
fortune  in  the  endeavor  to  brew  without  hops;  this 
failing,  he  sought  to  recoup  himself  by  over-brewing, 
despite  the  protests  of  his  wife,  seconded  by  Dr.  John- 
son, who  was  becoming  an  excellent  man  of  affairs. 
Listen  to  the  man  whose  boast  was  that  he  was  bred 
in  idleness  and  the  pride  of  literature.  "The  brew- 
house  must  be  the  scene  of  action.  .  .  .  The  first  con- 
sequence of  our  late  trouble  ought  to  be  an  endeavor 
to  brew  at  a  cheaper  rate,  an  endeavor  not  violent 
and  transient,  but  steady  and  continual,  prosecuted 
with  total  contempt  of  censure  or  wonder,  and  ani- 
mated by  resolution  not  to  stop  while  more  can  be 
done.  Unless  this  can  be  done,  nothing  can  help  us; 
and  if  this  is  done  we  shall  not  want  help.  Surely 
there  is  something  to  be  saved;  there  is  to  be  saved 
whatever  is  the  difference  between  vigilance  and 
neglect,  between  parsimony  and  profusion." 

It  is  proper  to  observe  that  it  is  Dr.  Johnson,  and 
not  Andrew  Carnegie,  who  is  speaking,  and  in  Mrs. 
Thrale's  copy  of  the  Dictionary,  which  I  happen  to 
own,  his  gift  to  her,  there  is  pasted  in  the  book  a  letter 
in  Dr.  Johnson's  autograph  written  about  this  time, 
one  paragraph  of  which  reads,  "I  think  it  very  prob- 
ably in  your  power  to  lay  up  eight  thousand  pounds 
a  year  for  every  year  to  come,  increasing  all  the  time, 
what  needs  not  be  increased,  the  splendour  of  all 
external  appearance;  and  surely  such  a  state  is  not 
to  be  put  in  yearly  hazard  for  the  pleasure  of  keep- 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  203 

• 

ing  the  house  full,  or  the  ambition  of  out-brewing 
Whi thread.  Stop  now  and  you  are  safe  —  stop  a 
few  years  and  you  may  go  safely  on  thereafter,  if  to 
go  on  shall  seem  worth  the  while." 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Thrale  was  quietly  digging  his 
grave  with  his  teeth.  Warned  by  his  physician  and 
his  friends  that  he  must  exercise  more  and  eat  less, 
he  snapped  his  fingers  at  them,  I  was  going  to  say; 
but  he  did  nothing  so  violent.  He  simply  disregarded 
their  advice  and  gave  orders  that  the  best  and  earliest 
of  everything  should  be  placed  upon  his  table  in  pro- 
fusion. His  death  was  the  result,  and  at  forty  Mrs. 
Thrale  found  herself  a  widow,  wealthy,  and  with  her 
daughters  amply  provided  for.  She,  with  Dr.  John- 
son and  several  others,  was  an  executor  of  the  estate, 
and  promptly  began  to  grapple  with  the  problems  of 
managing  a  great  business.  Not  long  after  Thrale's 
death  we  find  this  entry  in  her  journal:  "I  have  now 
appointed  three  days  a  week  to  attend  at  the  count- 
ing-house. If  an  angel  from  Heaven  had  told  me 
twenty  years  ago  that  the  man  I  knew  by  the  name 
of  Dictionary  Johnson  should  one  day  become  partner 
with  me  in  a  great  trade,  and  that  we  should  jointly 
or  separately  sign  notes,  drafts,  etc.,  for  three  or  four 
thousand  pounds,  of  a  morning,  how  unlikely  it  would 
have  seemed  ever  to  happen!  Unlikely  is  not  the 
word,  it  would  have  seemed  incredible,  neither  of  us 
then  being  worth  a  groat,  and  both  as  immeasurably 
removed  from  commerce  as  birth,  literature,  and 
inclination  could  get  us." 


204      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

The  opinion  was  general  that  Mrs.  Thrale  had  been 
a  mere  sleeping  partner,  and  her  friends  were  amazed 
at  the  insight  the  sparkling  little  lady  showed  in  the 
management  of  a  great  business.  "Such,"  says  Mrs. 
Montagu,  "is  the  dignity  of  Mrs.  Thrale's  virtue, 
and  such  her  superiority  in  all  situations  of  life,  that 
nothing  now  is  wanting  but  an  earthquake  to  show 
how  she  will  behave  on  that  occasion." 

But  this  state  of  things  was  not  long  to  continue. 
A  knot  of  rich  Quakers  came  along,  and  purchased  the 
enterprise  for  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand 
pounds.  Dr.  Johnson  was  not  quite  clear  that  the 
property  ought  to  be  sold;  but  when  the  sale  was 
finally  decided  upon,  he  did  his  share  toward  securing 
a  good  price.  Capitalization  of  earning  power  has 
never  been  more  succinctly  described  than  when,  in 
going  over  the  great  establishment  with  the  intending 
purchasers  he  made  his  famous  remark,  "We  are  not 
here  to  sell  a  parcel  of  boilers  and  vats,  but  the  poten- 
tiality of  growing  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice." 

For  Mrs.  Thrale  and  her  daughters  the  affair  was 
a  matter  of  great  moment;  excitement  ran  high. 
Fanny  Burney  was  staying  at  Streatham  while  the 
business  was  pending,  and  it  was  arranged  that  on 
the  day  the  transaction  was  to  be  consummated,  if  all 
went  well,  Mrs.  Thrale  would,  on  her  return  from  town, 
wave  a  white  pocket-handkerchief  out  of  the  coach 
window.  Dinner  was  at  four;  no  Mrs.  Thrale.  Five 
came,  and  no  Mrs.  Thrale.  At  last  the  coach  appeared 
and  out  of  the  window  fluttered  a  handkerchief. 


THE  BEST-KNOWX  PORTRAIT  OF  DR.  JOHNSOX,  BY  SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 
ORIGINALLY  IN  THE  LIBRARY  AT  STREATHAM.  SOLD  IN  1816  FOR  £378.  PASSED 
EVENTUALLY  INTO  THE  NATIONAL  GALLERY. 


Engraved  by  Doughty 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  205 

Mrs.  Thrale's  own  notes  are  amusing.  She  was  glad 
to  bid  adieu  to  the  brewhouse  and  to  the  Borough  — 
the  business  had  been  a  great  burden.  Her  daughters 
were  provided  for,  and  she  did  not  much  care  for 
money  for  herself.  By  the  bargain  she  had  purchased 
peace,  and,  as  she  said,  "restoration  to  her  orig- 
inal rank  in  life";  recording  in  her  journal,  "Now 
that  it  is  all  over  I'll  go  to  church  and  give  God 
thanks  and  forget  the  frauds,  follies  and  inconveni- 
ences of  commercial  life;  as  for  Dr.  Johnson,  his 
honest  heart  was  cured  of  its  incipient  passion  for 
trade  by  letting  him  into  some  and  only  some  of  its 
mysteries." 

A  final  word  on  the  subject  of  the  Thrale  brewhouse, 
which  still  exists.  A  year  or  two  ago  I  spent  a  morn- 
ing looking  for  Deadman's  Place,  which  has  disap- 
peared, but  the  great  enterprise  dominates  the  whole 
district,  which  is  redolent  with  the  odor  of  malt  and 
hops.  Johnson's  connection  with  the  business  is  im- 
mortalized by  his  portrait  —  the  famous  one  so  gen- 
erally known  —  being  used  as  its  trademark.  The 
original  picture  is  in  the  National  Gallery,  but  an  ex- 
cellent copy  hangs  in  the  directors'  room  of  the  brew- 
ery. The  furnishings  of  this  room  are  of  the  simplest. 
I  doubt  if  they  would  fetch  at  auction  a  five-pound 
note,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  Johnson's  chair  and 
desk  are  among  them.  In  this  room  a  business  run- 
ning annually  into  millions  is  transacted.  The  Eng- 
lish love  to  leave  old  things  as  they  are.  With  them 
history  is  always  in  the  making. 


t,^/a</7f^ 


ve^^^2— 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING 


207 


Not  many  Sundays  after  Mrs.  Thrale's  thanksgiv- 
ing she  had  a  visitor  at  Streatham  —  a  visitor  who, 
when  he  left,  carried  with  him  as  a  token  of  her  re- 
gard two  Uttle  caK-bound  volumes,  in  one  of  which 
was  the  inscription,  "These  books  written  by  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson  were  presented  to  Mr.  Gabbrielle 
Piozzi  by  Hester-Lynch  Thrale.  Streatham,  Sunday 
10  June,  1781";  with  a  further  note  in  an  equally 
clear  and  flowing  hand:  "And  Twenty  Eight  Years 
after  that  Time  pre- 
sented again  to  his 
Nephew  John  Piozzi 
Salusbury  by  Hester 
Lynch  Piozzi.  Brynbel- 
la  1st  August,  1809." 

I  am  able  to  be  exact 
in  this  small  matter, 
for  the  volumes  in  ques- 
tion were  given  me  not 
long  ago  by  a  friend 
who  understands  my 
passion  for  such  things. 
The  book  was  the  first 
edition  of  the  "Prince 
of  Abissinia"  (it  was 
not  known  as  "Ras- 
selas"  until  after  Dr. 
Johnson's  death),  and  Mrs.  Thrale  at  the  time  did 
not  know  Piozzi  sufficiently  well  to  spell  his  name 
correctly;  but  she  was  soon  to  learn,  and  to  learn. 


THE 

PRINCE 

OP 

ABISSINIA. 

A 

TALE. 

IN    Two  VOLUMES. 

VOL.     I. 

LONDON: 

Prinifd  fcr  R.  and  J.  Dodsley,  in  PaHMiU; 

ind  W.  J  0  H  N  s  T  o  K,  in  LudgateStrrtL 

MDCCLIX. 

208      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

too,  that  she  was  in  love  with  him  and  he  with  her. 

She  had  first  met  Piozzi  about  a  year  before,  at  a 
musicale  at  the  house  of  Dr.  Burney,  Fanny's  father. 
On  this  occasion  she  had  taken  advantage  of  his  back 
being  turned  to  mimic  him  as  he  sat  at  the  piano. 
For  this  she  was  reprimanded  by  Dr.  Burney,  and 
she  must  have  felt  that  she  deserved  the  correction, 
for  she  took  it  in  good  part  and  behaved  with  great 
decorum  during  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

After  a  year  in  her  widow's  weeds,  —  which  must 
have  tormented  Johnson,  for  he  hated  the  thought  of 
death  and  liked  to  see  ladies  dressed  in  gay  colors,  — 
she  laid  aside  her  severe  black  and  began  to  resume 
her  place  in  society.  The  newspapers  marked  the 
change,  and  every  man  who  entered  her  house  was 
referred  to  as  a  possible  husband  for  the  rich  and 
attractive  widow.  Finally  she  was  obliged  to  write 
to  the  papers  and  ask  that  they  would  let  the  subject 
alone. 

But  it  soon  became  evident  to  Johnson  and  to  the 
rest  of  the  world  that  Piozzi  w^as  successfully  laying 
siege  to  the  lady;  as  why  should  he  not.^  The  fact 
that  he  was  a  Catholic,  an  Italian,  and  a  musician 
could  hardly  have  appeared  to  him  as  reasons  why 
he  should  not  court  a  woman  of  rare  charm  and  dis- 
tinction, with  w^hom  he  had  been  on  terms  of  friend- 
ship for  several  years;  a  woman  who  was  of  suitable 
age,  the  mistress  of  a  fine  estate  and  three  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  and  whose  children  were  no  longer 
children  but  young  ladies  of  independent  fortune. 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  209 

That  she  should  marry  some  one  seemed  certain. 
Why  not  Piozzi?  Her  daughters  protested  that  their 
mother  was  disgracing  herself  and  them,  and  the 
world  held  up  its  hands  in  horror  at  the  thought;  the 
co-executors  of  the  estate  became  actually  insulting, 
and  Fanny  Burney  was  so  shocked  at  the  idea  that 
she  finally  gave  up  visiting  Streatham  altogether. 
Society  ranged  itself  for  and  against  the  lady  —  few 
for,  many  against. 

There  were  other  troubles,  too:  a  lawsuit  involving 
a  large  sum  was  decided  against  her,  and  Johnson, 
ill,  querulous,  and  exacting,  behaved  as  an  irritable 
old  man  would  who  felt  his  influence  in  the  family 
waning.  I  am  a  Johnsonian,  —  Tinker  has  called  me 
so  and  Tinker  may  be  depended  upon  to  know  a 
Johnsonian  when  he  sees  one,  —  but  I  am  bound  to 
admit  that  Johnson  had  behaved  badly  and  was  to 
behave  worse.  Johnson  was  very  human  and  the  lady 
was  very  human,  too.  They  had  come  to  a  parting 
of  the  ways. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  life  at  Streatham  must 
be  terminated.  Its  glory  had  departed,  and  the  ex- 
pense of  its  upkeep  was  too  great  for  the  lady;  so  a 
tenant  was  secured  and  Mrs.  Thrale  and  Dr.  John- 
son prepared  to  leave  the  house  in  which  so  many 
happy  years  had  been  spent.  Dr.  Johnson  was  once 
more  to  make  his  lodgings  in  Bolt  Court,  and  Mrs. 
Thrale,  after  a  visit  to  Brighton,  was  to  go  to  Bath 
to  repose  her  purse.  The  engagement,  or  understand- 
ing, or  whatever  it  was,  with  Piozzi  was  broken  off. 


eiO      AIMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  Italy  was  proposed  as  a  place  of  residence  for 
him.  Broken  hearts  there  were  in  plenty. 

Life  for  Mrs.  Thrale  at  Bath  proved  to  be  impos- 
sible. If  concealment  did  not  feed  on  the  damask  of 
her  cheek,  love  did,  and  at  last  it  became  evident, 
even  to  the  young  ladies,  that  their  mother  was  pining 
away  for  Piozzi,  and  they  gave  their  consent  that  he 
be  recalled. 

He  came  at  once.  Mrs.  Thrale,  on  his  departure, 
had  sent  him  a  poem  which  reached  him  at  Dover. 
She  now  sent  him  another  which  was  designed  to 
reach  him  on  his  return,  at  Calais. 

Over  mountains,  rivers,  vallies. 
See  my  love  returns  to  Calais, 
After  all  their  taunts  and  malice, 
Ent'ring  safe  the  gates  of  Calais. 
While  Delay'd  by  winds  he  dallies, 
Fretting  to  be  kept  at  Calais, 
Muse,  prepare  some  sprightly  sallies 
To  divert  my  dear  at  Calais; 
Say  how  every  rogue  who  rallies 
Envies  him  who  waits  at  Calais 
For  her  that  would  disdain  a  Palace 
Compar'd  to  Piozzi,  Love  and  Calais. 

Pretty  poor  poetry  those  who  know  tell  me;  but  if 
Piozzi  liked  it,  it  served  its  purpose.  And  now  Mrs. 
Thrale  announced  her  engagement  in  a  circular  letter 
to  her  co-executors  under  the  Thrale  will,  sending, 
in  addition,  to  Johnson  a  letter  in  which  she  saj^s, 
*'The  dread  of  your  disapprol^ation  has  given  me 
some  anxious  moments,  and  I  feel  as  if  acting  with- 
out a  parent's  consent  till  you  write  kindly  to  me." 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  211 

Johnson's  reply  is  historic:  — 

Madam,  —  If  I  interpret  your  letter  right,  you  are 
ignominiously  married :  if  it  is  yet  undone,  let  us  once  more 
talk  together.  If  you  have  abandoned  your  children  and 
your  religion,  God  forgive  your  wickedness;  if  you  have 
forfeited  your  fame  and  your  country,  may  your  folly  do 
no  further  mischief.  If  the  last  act  is  yet  to  do,  I  who  have 
loved  you,  esteemed  you,  reverenced  you,  and  served  you, 
I  who  long  thought  you  the  first  of  womankind,  entreat 
that,  before  your  fate  is  irrevocable,  I  may  once  more  see 
you.  I  was,  I  once  was.  Madam,  most  truly  yours, 

Sam  Johnson. 

July  2,  1784. 

It  was  a  smashing  letter,  and  showed  that  the  mind 
which  had  composed  the  famous  letter  to  Chester- 
field and  another,  equally  forceful,  to  Macpherson 
had  not  lost  its  vigor.  But  those  letters  had  brought 
no  reply.  His  letter  to  Mrs.  Thrale  did,  and  one  at 
once  dignified  and  respectful.  The  little  lady  was  no 
novice  in  letter-writing,  and  I  can  imagine  that  upon 
the  arrival  of  her  letter  the  weary,  heartsick  old  man 
wept.  Remember  that  his  emotions  were  seldom  com- 
pletely under  his  control,  and  that  he  had  nothing  of 
the  bear  about  him  but  its  skin. 

Sir  [she  wrote];  I  have  this  morning  received  from  you 
so  rough  a  letter  in  reply  to  one  which  was  both  tenderly 
and  respectfully  written,  that  I  am  forced  to  desire  the 
conclusion  of  a  correspondence  which  I  can  bear  to  con- 
tinue no  longer.  The  birth  of  my  second  husband  is  not 
meaner  than  that  of  my  first;  his  sentiments  are  not 
meaner;  his  profession  is  not  meaner;  and  his  superiority 
in  what  he  professes  acknowledged  by  all  mankind.    Is 


212      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

it  want  of  fortune,  then,  that  is  ignominious?  The  char- 
acter of  the  man  I  have  chosen  has  no  other  claim  to  such 
an  epithet.  The  religion  to  which  he  has  been  always  a 
zealous  adherent  will,  I  hope,  teach  him  to  forgive  insults 
he  has  not  deserved;  mine  will,  I  hope,  enable  me  to  bear 
them  at  once  with  dignity  and  patience.  To  hear  that  I 
have  forfeited  my  fame  is  indeed  the  greatest  insult  I  ever 
yet  received.  My  fame  is  as  unsullied  as  snow,  or  I  should 
think  it  unworthy  of  him  who  must  henceforth  protect  it. 

Johnson,  she  says,  wrote  once  more,  but  the  letter 
has  never  come  to  light;  the  correspondence,  which 
had  continued  over  a  period  of  twenty  years,  was  at 
an  end.  An  interesting  letter  of  Thomas  Hardy  on 
this  subject  came  into  my  possession  recently.  In  it 
he  says,  "I  am  in  full  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Thrale 
under  the  painful  opposition  to  her  marriage  with 
Piozzi.  The  single  excuse  for  Johnson's  letter  to  her 
on  that  occasion  would  be  that  he  was  her  lover  him- 
self, and  hoped  to  win  her,  otherwise  it  was  simply 
brutal."  I  do  not  think  that  Johnson  was  her  lover, 
and  I  am  afraid  I  must  agree  that  Johnson  was  brutal. 
In  extenuation  I  urge  that  he  was  a  very  weary,  sick 
old  man. 

At  the  time  Mrs.  Thrale's  detractors  were  many 
and  her  defenders  few.  Two  dates  were  given  as  to 
the  time  of  her  marriage,  which  started  some  wan- 
dering lies,  much  to  her  disadvantage.  The  fact  is 
that  both  dates  were  correct,  for  she  was  married  to 
Piozzi  once  by  a  Catholic  and  several  weeks  later  by 
a  Church  of  England  ceremony.  In  her  journal  she 
writes  under  date  of  July  25,  1784,  *'I  am  now  the 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  213 

wife  of  my  faithful  Piozzi  ...  he  loves  me  and  will 
be  mine  forever.  .  .  .  The  whole  Christian  Church, 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  all  are  witnesses." 

For  two  years  they  traveled  on  the  continent.  No 
marriage  could  have  been  happier.  Piozzi,  by  com- 
parison with  his  wife,  is  a  rather  shadowy  person.  He 
is  described  as  being  a  handsome  man,  a  few  months 
older  than  she,  with  gentle,  pleasant,  unaffected  man- 
ners, very  eminent  in  his  profession;  nor  was  he,  as 
was  so  frequently  stated,  a  man  without  a  fortune. 
The  difference  in  their  religious  views  was  the  cause  of 
no  difficulty.  Each  respected  the  religion  of  the  other 
and  kept  his  or  her  own.  "I  would  preserve  my  relig- 
ious opinions  inviolate  at  Milan  as  my  husband  did 
his  at  London,"  is  an  entry  in  her  journal. 

She  was  staying  at  Milan  when  tidings  of  John- 
son's death  reached  her.  All  of  her  correspondents 
hastened  to  apprize  her  of  the  news.  I  have  a  long 
letter  to  her  from  one  Henry  Johnson,  —  who  he  was, 
I  am  unable  to  determine,  —  written  one  day  after 
the  funeral,  describing  the  procession  forming  in  Bolt 
Court;  the  taking  of  mourning  coaches  in  Fleet  Street 
and  "proceeding  to  Westminster  Abbey  where  the 
corpse  was  laid  close  to  the  remains  of  David  Gar- 
rick,  Esquire." 

That  Madam  Piozzi,  as  we  must  now  call  her,  w^as 
deeply  affected,  we  cannot  doubt.  Only  a  few  days 
before  the  news  of  his  death  reached  her,  we  find  her 
writing  to  a  friend,  urging  him  not  to  neglect  Dr. 
Johnson,  saying,  "You  will  never  see  any  other  mortal 


214      A]MENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

so  wise  or  so  good.  I  keep  his  picture  constantly  be- 
fore me."  Before  long  she  heard,  too,  that  several 
of  her  old  friends  had  engaged  to  write  his  life,  and 
Piozzi  urged  her  to  be  one  of  the  number.  The  result 
was  the  "Anecdotes  of  the  late  Samuel  Johnson  during 
the  last  Twenty  Years  of  his  Life."  It  is  not  a  great 
work,  but  considering  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  was  written,  her  journals  being  locked  up  in  Eng- 
land while  she  was  writing  at  Florence,  greater  faults 
than  were  found  in  it  could  have  been  overlooked.  It 
provided  Boswell  with  some  good  anecdotes  for  his 
great  book,  and  it  antedated  Hawkins's  "Life  of 
Johnson"  by  about  a  year. 

The  public  appetite  was  whetted  by  the  earlier 
publication  of  Boswell's  "Journal  of  a  Tour  of  the 
Hebrides,"  in  which  he  had  given  a  taste  of  his 
quality,  and  the  "Anecdotes"  appeared  at  a  time 
when  everything  which  related  to  Johnson  had  a 
great  vogue.  The  book  was  published  by  Cadell,  and 
so  great  was  the  demand,  that  the  first  edition  was 
exhausted  on  the  day  of  publication;  so  that,  when 
the  King  sent  for  a  copy  in  the  evening,  on  the  day 
of  its  publication,  the  publisher  had  to  beg  for  one 
from  a  friend. 

Bozzy  and  Piozzi  thus  became  rival  biographers 
in  the  opinion  of  the  public,  and  the  public  got  what 
pleasure  it  could  out  of  numerous  caricatures  and 
satires  with  which  the  bookshops  abounded,  many  of 
these  being  amusing  and  some  simply  scurrilous,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  time. 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  215 

Meanwhile,  the  Piozzis  had  become  tired  of  travel 
and  wished  again  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  a  home. 
"Prevail  on  Mr.  Piozzi  to  settle  in  England,"  had 
been  Dr.  Johnson's  parting  advice.  It  was  not  diffi- 
cult to  do  so,  and  on  their  return,  after  a  short  stay 
in  London,  they  took  up  residence  in  Bath. 

Here  Madam  Piozzi,  encouraged  by  the  success  of 
the  "Anecdotes,"  devoted  herself  to  the  publication 
of  two  volumes  of  "Letters  to  and  from  the  late 
Samuel  Johnson."  Their  preparation  for  the  press 
was  somewhat  crude:  it  consisted  largely  in  mak- 
ing omissions  here  and  there,  and  substituting  aster- 
isks for  proper  names;  but  the  copyright  was  sold 
for  five  hundred  pounds,  and  the  letters  showed, 
if  indeed  it  was  necessary  to  show,  how  intimate 
had  been  the  relationship  between  the  Doctor  and 
herself. 

As  time  went  on,  there  awakened  in  Madam  Piozzi 
a  longing  for  the  larger  life  of  Streatham,  and  her 
husband,  always  anxious  to  accomplish  her  wishes, 
decided  that  she  should  return  to  the  scene  of  her 
former  triumphs;  but  Dr.  Johnson,  the  keystone  of 
her  social  arch,  was  gone,  and  there  was  no  one  to  take 
his  place.  Her  husband  was  a  cultured  gentleman, 
but  he  was  not  to  the  English  manner  born. 

The  attempt  was  made,  however,  and  on  the 
seventh  anniversary  of  their  wedding  day  Streatham 
was  thrown  open.  Seventy  people  sat  down  to  din- 
ner, the  house  and  grounds  were  illuminated,  and  the 
villagers  were  made  welcome.     A  thousand  people 


216      AIMENITTES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

thronged  through  the  estate.  One  might  have  sup- 
posed that  a  young  lord  had  come  into  his  own. 

It  was  a  brave  effort,  but  it  was  soon  seen  to  be  un- 
avaihng.  A  man's  fame  may  be  hke  a  shuttle-cock, 
having  constantly  to  be  struck  to  prevent  its  falling; 
but  not  a  woman's.  She  had  lost  caste  by  her  mar- 
riage. It  was  not  forgotten  that  her  husband  was  "a 
foreigner,"  that  he  had  been  a  "fiddler";  while  his 
wife  had  been  the  object  of  too  much  ridicule,  the 
subject  of  too  many  lampoons. 

But  the  lady  had  resources  within  herself;  she  was 
an  inveterate  reader  and  she  had  tasted  the  joys  of 
authorship.  She  now  published  a  volume  of  travels 
and  busied  herself  with  several  other  works,  the  very 
names  of  which  are  forgotten  except  by  the  curious 
in  such  matters. 

WTiile  she  was  thus  engaged  a  bitter  and  scandalous 
attack  was  made  upon  her  by  Baretti.  Now,  Baretti 
was  a  liar,  and  in  proof  of  her  good  sense  and  for- 
giving disposition,  I  offer  in  evidence  the  entry  that 
she  made  in  her  journal  when  she  heard  of  his  death. 
"Baretti  is  dead.  Poor  Baretti!  ...  he  died  as  he 
lived,  less  like  a  Christian  than  a  philosopher,  leav- 
ing no  debts  (but  those  of  gratitude)  undischarged 
and  expressing  neither  regret  for  the  past  nor  fear  for 
the  future.  ...  A  wit  rather  than  a  scholar,  strong 
in  his  prejudices,  haughty  in  spirit,  cruel  in  anger. 
He  is  dead!  So  is  my  enmity." 

On  another  occasion  she  contrived  to  quiet  a  hostile 
critic  who  had  ridiculed  her  in  verse;  much  damage 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  217 

may  be  done  by  a  couplet,  as  she  well  knew,  and  the 

lines,  — 

See  Thrale's  grey  widow  with  a  satchel  roam 
And  bring  in  pomp  laborious  nothings  home,  — 

were  not  nice,  however  true  they  might  be.  Madam 
Piozzi  determined  to  take  him  in  hand.  She  con- 
trived at  the  house  of  a  friend  to  get  herself  placed  op- 
posite to  him  at  a  supper-table,  and  after  observing 
his  perplexity  with  amusement  for  a  time,  she  raised 
her  wine-glass  to  him  and  proposed  the  toast,  "Good 
fellowship  for  the  future."  The  critic  was  glad  to 
avail  himself  of  the  dainty  means  of  escape  from  an 
awkward  situation. 

However,  it  was  evident  that  life  at  Streatham 
could  not  be  continued  on  the  old  scale.  Funds  were 
not  as  plentiful  as  in  the  days  of  the  great  brew- 
master;  so  after  a  few  years,  when  her  husband  sug- 
gested their  retiring  to  her  native  Wales,  she  was 
glad  to  fall  in  with  the  idea.  A  charming  site  was 
selected,  and  a  villa  built  in  the  Italian  style  after 
her  husband's  design.  It  was  called  "Brynbella," 
meaning  beautiful  brow;  half  Welsh  and  half  Italian, 
like  its  owners.  I  fancy  their  lives  were  happier  here 
than  they  had  been  elsewhere,  for  they  built  upon 
their  own  foundation.  Piozzi  had  his  piano  and  his 
violin,  and  the  lady  busied  herself  with  her  books; 
while  the  monotony  of  existence  was  pleasantly  broken 
by  occasional  visits  to  Bath,  where  they  had  many 
friends. 

And  during  these  years,  letters  and  notes,  com- 


«18      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

ment  and  criticism,  dropped  from  her  pen  like  leaves 
from  a  tree  in  autumn.  She  lived  over  again  in  mem- 
ory her  life  in  London,  reading  industriously,  and 
busy  in  the  pleasant  and  largely  profitless  way  which 
tends  to  make  days  pass  into  months  and  months  into 
years  and  leave  no  trace  of  their  passing.  She  must 
always  have  had  a  pen  in  her  hand:  it  goes  without 
saying  that  she  had  kept  a  diary;  in  those  days  every- 
one did,  and  most  had  less  than  she  to  record.  It 
was  Dr.  Johnson  who  suggested  that  she  get  a  little 
book  and  write  in  it  all  the  anecdotes  she  might  hear, 
observations  she  might  make,  or  verse  that  might 
otherwise  be  lost.  These  instructions  were  followed 
literally,  but  no  little  book  suflBced.  She  filled  many 
large  quarto  volumes,  six  of  which,  entitled  "Thrali- 
ana,"  passed  through  the  London  auction  rooms  in 
1908,  bringing  £2050.  One  volume,  which  perhaps 
does  not  belong  to  the  series,  but  which  in  every  way 
accords  with  Dr.  Johnson's  suggestion,  formed  part 
of  the  late  A.  M.  Broadley's  collection  until,  at  his 
death,  it  passed  with  several  other  items,  into  that  of 
the  writer. 

Mr.  Broadley  took  an  ardent  interest  in  every- 
thing that  related  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  and  published,  a  few 
years  ago,  her  "Journal  of  the  Welsh  Tour,'*  under- 
taken in  the  summer  of  1774.  Dr.  Johnson  also  kept 
a  diary  on  this  journey,  but  his  is  bald  and  fragmen- 
tary, while  that  of  the  lady  is  an  intimate  and  con- 
secutive narrative.  The  original  manuscript  volume, 
in  its  original  dark,  limp  leather  binding  is  before  me. 


/a  ^n^CyA-  A/  .^"  A*^^n*.f^^ iy^~a^z4rj^  ^^"^^^tcm.  J^u/f  ^ 


Jj/co    >w   h^/  (^   tUj>^  T^tJ^    t^<^  '^^  ^ 

FACSIMILE,  MUCH  REDUCED    IN    SIZE,  OF    THE    LAST  PAGE  OF  MRS. 

THRALES  "JOURNAL  OF  A  TOUR  IN  WALES,"   UNDERTAKEN  IN 

THE  COMPANY  OF  DR.  JOHNSON  IN  THE  SU^IMER  OF  1774 


220      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

It  comprises  ninety-seven  pages  in  Mrs.  Thrale's 
beautiful  hand,  beginning,  "On  Tuesday,  5th  July, 
1774, 1  began  my  journey  through  AVales.  We  set  out 
from  Streatham  in  our  coach  and  four  post  horses, 
accompanied  by  Dr.  Johnson  and  our  eldest  daughter. 
Baretti  went  with  us  as  far  as  London,  where  we  left 
him  and  hiring  fresh  horses  they  carried  us  to  the 
Mitre  at  Barnet";  and  so  on  throughout  the  whole 
tour,  until  she  made  this,  her  final  entry:  — 

September  30th.  When  I  rose  Mr.  Thrale  informed  me 
that  the  Parliament  was  suddenly  dissolved  and  that  all 
the  world  was  bustle;  that  we  were  to  go  to  South wark, 
not  to  Streatham,  and  canvass  away.  I  heard  the  first 
part  of  this  report  with  pleasure,  the  latter  with  pain; 
nothing  but  a  real  misfortune  could,  I  think,  affect  me  so 
much  as  the  thoughts  of  going  to  To^;^^l  thus  to  settle  for 
the  Winter  before  I  have  had  any  enjoyment  of  Streatham 
at  all;  and  so  all  my  hopes  of  pleasure  blow  away.  I  thought 
to  have  lived  in  Streatham  in  quiet  and  comfort,  have 
kissed  my  children  and  cuffed  them  by  turns,  and  had  a 
place  always  for  them  to  play  in;  and  here  I  must  be  shut 
up  in  that  odious  dungeon,  where  nobodj^  will  come  near 
me,  the  children  are  to  be  sick  for  want  of  air,  and  I  am 
never  to  see  a  face  but  Mr.  Johnson's.  Oh,  what  a  life  that 
is!  and  how  truly  do  I  abhor  it!  At  noon  however  I  saw 
my  Girls  and  thought  Susan  vastly  improved.  At  evening 
I  saw  my  Boys  and  liked  them  very  well  too.  How  much 
is  there  always  to  thank  God  for!  But  I  dare  not  enjoy 
poor  Streatham  lest  I  should  be  forced  to  quit  it. 

I  value  this  little  volume  highly,  as  who,  interested 
in  the  lady,  would  not?  It  is  an  unaffected  record 
of  a  journey,  of  interesting  people  who  met  interest- 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  221 

ing  people  wherever  they  went,  and  its  pubHcation 
by  Broadley  was  a  pious  act.  But  that  the  Broadley 
volume,  published  a  few  years  ago,  gets  its  chief 
value  from  the  sympathetic  introduction  by  Thomas 
Seccombe,  must,  I  think,  be  admitted. 

It  is  no  longer  the  fashion  to  "blush  as  well  as  weep 
for  Mrs.  Thrale."  This  silly  phrase  is  Macaulay's. 
Rather,  as  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  remarked  to  me  in 
going  over  some  of  her  paper^  in  my  library,  "  What  a 
dear,  delightful  person  she  was !  I  have  always  wanted 
to  meet  her."  In  the  future,  what  may  be  written  of 
Mrs.  Thrale  will  be  written  in  better  taste.  At  this 
time  of  day  why  should  she  be  attacked  because  she 
married  a  man  who  did  not  speak  English  as  his 
mother  tongue,  and  who  was  a  musician  rather  than 
a  brewer  .f*  One  may  be  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Dr. 
Johnson  —  I  confess  I  am  —  and  yet  keep  a  warm 
place  in  one's  heart  for  the  kindly  and  charming  little 
woman.  Admit  that  she  was  not  the  scholar  she 
thought  she  was,  that  she  was  "inaccurate  in  narra- 
tion": what  matters  it?  She  was  a  woman  of  char- 
acter, too.  She  was  not  overpowered  by  Dr.  Johnson, 
as  was  Fanny  Burney,  to  such  a  degree  that  at  last 
she  came  to  write  like  him,  only  more  so.  Mrs. 
Thrale,  by  her  own  crisp,  vigorous  English,  influenced 
the  Doctor  finally  to  write  as  he  talked,  naturally, 
without  that  undue  elaboration  which  was  character- 
istic of  his  earlier  style. 

If  Johnson  mellowed  under  the  benign  influence  of 
the  lady,  she  was  the  gainer  in  knowledge,  especially 


222      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

in  such  knowledge  as  comes  from  books.  It  was  Mrs. 
Thrale  rather  than  her  husband  who  formed  the 
Streatham  hbrary.  Her  taste  was  robust,  she  baulked 
at  no  foreign  language,  but  set  about  to  study  it.  I 
have  never  seen  a  book  from  her  library  —  and  I 
have  seen  many  —  which  was  not  filled  with  notes 
written  in  her  clear  and  beautiful  hand.  These  vol- 
umes, like  the  books  which  Lamb  lent  Coleridge, 
and  which  he  returned  with  annotations  tripling  their 
value,  are  occasionally  offered  for  sale  in  those  old 
book-shops  where  our  resolutions  not  to  be  tempted 
are  writ  in  so  much  water;  or  they  turn  up  at  auction 
sales  and  astonish  the  uninitiated  by  the  prices  they 
bring. 

Several  of  these  volumes  are  in  the  collection  of  the 
writer:  her  Dictionary,  the  gift  of  Dr.  Johnson,  for 
instance,  and  a  "Life  of  Psalmanazar,"  another  gift 
from  the  same  source;  but  the  book  which,  above  all 
others,  every  Johnsonian  would  wish  to  own  is  the 
property  of  Miss  Amy  Lowell  of  Boston,  a  poet  of 
rare  distinction,  a  critic,  and  America's  most  dis- 
tinguished woman  collector.  Who  does  not  envy  her 
the  possession  of  the  first  edition  of  Boswell's  "Life 
of  Johnson,"  filled  with  the  marginalia  of  the  one 
person  in  the  world  whose  knowledge  of  the  old  man 
rivaled  that  of  the  great  biographer  himself?  And  to 
hear  Miss  Lowell  quote  these  notes  in  a  manner  sug- 
gestive of  the  charm  of  Madam  Piozzi  herself,  is  a 
delight  never  to  be  forgotten. 

About  the  time  of  the  Piozzis'  removal  to  Wales, 


AMY  LOWKLL,  OF  BOSTON,  TOET,  CRITIC.  AM)  AMKKICA.- 
DISTINGUISHEI)  WOMAN  COLLECTOR 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  ?23 

they  decided  to  adopt  a  nephew,  the  son  of  Piozzi's 
brother,  who  had  met  with  financial  reverses  in  Italy. 
The  boy  had  been  christened  John  Salusbury  in 
honor  of  Mrs.  Piozzi,  and  she  became  greatly  at- 
tached to  the  lad  and  decided  to  leave  him  her  entire 
fortune.  He  was  brought  up  as  an  English  boy,  and 
his  education  was  a  matter  which  gave  her  serious 
concern. 

Meanwhile,  the  years  that  had  touched  the  lady  so 
lightly  had  left  their  impress  upon  her  husband,  who 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  strong.  He  was  a  great 
sufferer  from  gout,  and  finally  died,  and  was  buried 
in  the  parish  church  of  Tremeirchion,  which  years 
before  he  had  caused  to  be  repaired,  and  had  built 
there  a  burial  vault  in  which  his  remains  were  placed. 
They  had  lived  in  perfect  harmony  for  twenty-five 
years,  thus  effectually  overturning  the  prophecies  of 
their  friends.  She  continued  to  reside  at  Brynbella 
until  the  marriage  of  her  adopted  son,  when  she  gen- 
erously gave  him  the  estate  and  removed  to  Bath, 
that  lovely  little  city  where  so  many  celebrities  have 
gone  to  pass  the  closing  years  of  eventful  lives. 

As  a  "Bath  cat"  she  continued  her  interest  in  men, 
women,  and  books  until  the  end.  Having  outlived 
all  her  old  friends,  she  proceeded  to  make  new;  and 
when  nearly  eighty  astonished  everyone  by  showing 
great  partiality  for  a  young  and  handsome  actor,  — 
and,  if  reports  be  true,  a  very  bad  actor,  —  named 
Conway.  There  was  much  smoke  and  doubtless  some 
fire  in  the  affair:  letters  purporting  to  be  hers  to  him 


224      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

were  published  after  her  death.  They  may  not  be 
genuine,  and  if  they  are  they  show  simply,  as  Leslie 
Stephen  says,  that  at  a  very  advanced  age  she  be- 
came silly. 

On  her  eightieth  birthday  she  gave  a  ball  to  six  or 
seven  hundred  people  in  the  x\ssembly  Rooms  at 
Bath,  and  led  the  dancing  herself  with  her  adopted 
son  (who  by  this  time  was  Sir  John  Salusbury  Piozzi), 
very  much  to  her  satisfaction. 

A  year  later  she  met  with  an  accident,  from  the 
effects  of  which  she  died.  She  was  buried  in  Tre- 
meirchion  Church  beside  her  husband.  A  few  years 
ago,  on  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth 
of  Johnson,  a  memorial  tablet  was  erected  in  the 
quaint  old  church,  reading,  — 

Near  this  place  are  interred  the  remains  of 

HESTER  LYNCH  PIOZZI 

Dr.  Johnson's  Mrs.  Thrale 

Bom  1741,  died  1821 

Mrs.  Piozzi's  life  is  her  most  enduring  work. 
Trifles  were  her  serious  business,  and  she  was  never 
idle.  Always  a  great  letter-writer,  she  set  in  motion 
a  correspondence  which  would  have  taxed  the  capac- 
ity of  a  secretary  with  a  typewriter.  To  the  last  she 
was  a  great  reader,  and  observing  a  remark  in  Boswell 
on  the  irksomeness  of  books  to  people  of  advanced 
age,  she  wrote  on  the  margin,  "Not  to  me,  at  eighty." 
Her  wonderful  memory  remained  unimpaired  until 


A  LIGHT-BLUE  STOCKING  225 

the  last.  She  knew  EngUsh  hterature  well.  She  spoke 
French  and  Italian  fluently.  Latin  she  transcribed 
with  ease  and  grace;  of  Greek  she  had  a  smattering, 
and  she  is  said  to  have  had  a  working  knowledge  of 
Hebrew;  but  I  suspect  that  her  Hebrew  would  have 
set  a  scholar's  hair  on  end.  With  all  these  accom- 
plishments, she  was  not  a  pedant,  or,  properly  speak- 
ing, a  Blue-Stocking,  or  if  she  was,  it  was  of  a  very 
light  shade  of  blue.  She  told  a  capital  story,  omitted 
everything  irrelevant  and  came  to  the  point  at  once; 
in  brief,  she  was  a  man's  woman. 

And  to  end  the  argument  where  it  began,  —  for 
arguments  always  end  where  they  begin,  —  I  came 
across  a  remark  the  other  day  which  sums  up  my 
contention.  It  was  to  the  effect  that,  in  whatever 
company  Mrs.  Piozzi  found  herself,  others  found  her 
the  most  charming  person  in  the  room. 


VIII 

A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER 

I  AM  not  sure  that  I  know  what  philosophy  is;  a  phi- 
losopher is  one  who  practices  it,  and  we  have  it  on  high 
authority  that  "there  was  never  yet  philosopher  that 
could  endure  the  toothache  patiently." 

There  is  an  old  man  in  Wilkie  Collins's  novel,  "The 
Moonstone,"  the  best  novel  of  its  kind  in  the  lan- 
guage, who,  when  in  doubt,  reads  "Robinson  Crusoe." 
In  like  manner  I,  when  in  doubt,  turn  to  Boswell's 
"Life  of  Johnson,"  and  there  I  read  that  the  fine, 
crusty  old  doctor  was  hailed  in  the  Strand  one  day  by 
a  man  who  half  a  century  before  had  been  at  Pem- 
broke College  with  him.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
Johnson  did  not  at  first  remember  his  former  friend, 
and  he  was  none  too  well  pleased  to  be  reminded  that 
they  were  both  "old  men  now."  "We  are,  sir,"  said 
Dr.  Johnson,  "but  do  not  let  us  discourage  one  an- 
other"; and  they  began  to  talk  over  old  times  and 
compare  notes  as  to  where  they  stood  in  the  world. 

Edwards,  his  friend,  had  practiced  law  and  had 
made  money,  but  had  spent  or  given  away  much  of  it. 
"I  shall  not  die  rich,"  said  he.  "But,  sir,"  said  John- 
son, "it  is  better  to  live  rich  than  to  die  rich."  And 
now  comes  Edwards's  immortal  remark,  "You  are  a 
philosopher,  Dr.  Johnson.    I  have  tried,  too,  in  my 


iWPr???  h^Af/)9y^ 


THE  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER 

From  a  drawing  by  Maclise 


228      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

time  to  be  a  philosopher,  but  I  don't  know  how: 
cheerfulness  was  always  breaking  in." 

With  the  word  *' cheerfulness,"  Edwards  had  de- 
molished the  scheme  of  life  of  most  of  our  professed 
philosophers,  who  have  no  place  in  their  systems  for 
the  attribute  that  goes  furthest  toward  making  life 
worth  while  to  the  average  man. 

Cheerfulness  is  a  much  rarer  quality  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed,  especially  among  the  rich.  It  was 
not  common  even  before  we  learned  that,  in  spite  of 
Browning,  though  God  may  be  in  his  heaven,  ne^'er- 
theless,  all  is  wrong  with  the  world. 

If  "most  men  lead  lives  of  quiet  desperation,"  as 
Thoreau  says  they  do,  it  is,  I  suspect,  because  they 
will  not  allow  cheerfulness  to  break  in  upon  them 
when  it  will.  A  good  disposition  is  worth  a  fortune. 
Give  cheerfulness  a  chance  and  let  the  professed 
philosopher  go  hang. 

But  it  is  high  time  for  me  to  turn  my  attention,  and 
yours,  if  I  may,  to  the  particular  philosopher  through 
whom  I  wish  to  stick  my  pen,  and  whom,  thus  im- 
paled, I  wish  to  present  for  your  edification  —  say, 
rather,  amusement.  His  name  was  William  Godwin; 
he  was  the  husband  of  Mary  W'ollstonecraft  and  the 
father-in-law  of  Shelley. 

Godwin  w^as  born  in  Cambridgeshire  in  1756,  and 
came  of  preaching  stock.  It  is  related  that,  when 
only  a  lad,  he  used  to  steal  away,  not  to  go  in  swim- 
ming or  to  rob  an  orchard,  but  to  a  meeting-house  to 
preach;  this  at  the  age  of  ten.  The  boy  was  father  to 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  229 

the  man :  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  never  did  anything 
else.  He  first  preached  orthodoxy,  later  heterodoxy, 
but  he  was  always  a  preacher.  I  do  not  like  the  tribe. 
I  am  using  the  word  as  indicating  one  who  elects  to 
teach  by  word  rather  than  by  example. 

When  a  boy  he  had  an  attack  of  smallpox.  Relig- 
ious scruples  prevented  him  from  submitting  to  vac- 
cination, for  he  said  he  had  no  wish  to  run  counter  to 
the  will  of  God.  In  this  frame  of  mind  he  did  not  long 
remain.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  hard  student  — 
what  we  would  call  a  grind.  He  read  enormously,  and 
by  twenty  he  considered  that  he  was  fully  equipped 
for  his  life's  work.  He  was  as  ready  to  preach  as  an 
Irishman  is  to  fight,  for  the  love  of  it;  but  he  was 
quarrelsome  as  well  as  pious,  and,  falling  out  with  his 
congregation,  he  dropped  the  title  of  Reverend  and 
betook  himself  to  literature  and  London. 

At  this  time  the  French  Revolution  was  raging,  and 
the  mental  churning  which  it  occasioned  had  its  effect 
upon  sounder  minds  than  his.  Godwin  soon  became 
intimate  with  Tom  Paine  and  others  of  like  opinions. 
Wherever  political  heresy  and  schism  was  talked,  there 
Godwin  was  to  be  found.  He  stood  for  everything 
which  was  "advanced"  in  thought  and  conduct;  he 
joined  the  school  which  was  to  write  God  with  a  small 
g.  All  the  radical  visionaries  in  London  were  attracted 
to  him,  and  he  to  them.  He  thought  and  dreamed  and 
talked,  and  finally  grew  to  feel  the  need  of  a  larger 
audience.  The  result  was  *'An  Enquiry  Concerning 
Political  Justice,"  a  book  which  created  a  tremendous 


230      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

sensation  in  its  day.  It  seemed  the  one  thing  needed 
to  bring  pohtical  dissent  and  dissatisfaction  to  a  head. 

Much  was  wrong  at  the  time,  much  is  still  wrong, 
and  doubtless  reformers  of  Godwin's  type  do  a  certain 
amount  of  good.  They  call  attention  to  abuses,  and 
eventually  the  world  sets  about  to  remedy  them. 
A  "movement"  is  in  the  air;  it  centres  in  some  man 
who  voices  and  directs  it.  For  the  moment  the  man 
and  the  movement  seem  to  be  one.  Ultimately  the 
movement  becomes  diffused,  its  character  changes; 
frequently  the  man  originally  identified  with  it  is 
forgotten  —  so  it  was  with  Godwin. 

"Political  Justice"  was  published  in  1793.  In  it 
Godwin  fell  foul  of  everything.  He  assailed  all 
forms  of  government.  The  common  idea  that  blood 
is  thicker  than  water,  is  wrong:  all  men  are  brothers; 
one  should  do  for  a  stranger  as  for  a  brother.  The 
distribution  of  property  is  absurd.  A  man's  needs  are 
to  be  taken  as  the  standard  of  what  he  should  receive. 
He  that  needs  most  is  to  be  given  most  —  by  whom, 
Godwin  did  not  say. 

Marriage  is  a  law  and  the  worst  of  all  laws:  it  is  an 
affair  of  property,  and  like  property  must  be  abol- 
ished. The  intercourse  of  the  sexes  is  to  be  like  any 
other  species  of  friendship.  If  two  men  happen  to  feel 
a  preference  for  the  same  woman,  let  them  both  enjoy 
her  conversation  and  be  wise  enough  to  consider 
sexual  intercourse  "a  very  trivial  object  indeed." 

I  have  a  copy  of  "Political  Justice,"  before  me, 
with  Tom  Paine's  signature  on  the  title-page.   What 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  231 

a  whirlwind  all  this  once  created,  especially  with  the 
young!  Its  author  became  one  of  the  most-talked -of 
men  of  his  time,  and- Godwin's  estimate  of  himself 
could  not  have  been  higher  than  that  his  disciples  set 
upon  him.  Compared  with  him,  "Paine  was  nowhere 
and  Burke  a  flashy  sophist."  He  gloried  in  the  reputa- 
tion his  book  gave  him,  and  he  profited  by  it  to  the 
extent  of  a  thousand  pounds;  to  him  it  was  a  fortune. 

Pitt,  who  was  then  Prime  Minister,  when  his  atten- 
tion was  called  to  the  book,  wisely  remarked,  "It  is 
not  worth  while  to  prosecute  the  author  of  a  three- 
guinea  book,  because  at  such  a  price  very  little  harm 
can  be  done  to  those  who  have  not  three  shillings  to 
spare." 

The  following  year  Godwin  published  his  one  other 
book  that  has  escaped  the  rubbish  heap  of  time  — 
"The  Adventures  of  Caleb  Williams,"  a  novel.  It  is 
the  best  of  w^hat  might  be  called  "The  Nightmare 
Series,"  which  would  begin  with  "The  Castle  of 
Otranto,"  include  his  own  daughter's  "Franken- 
stein," and  end,  for  the  moment,  with  Bram  Stoker's 
"Dracula."  "Caleb  Williams"  has  genuine  merit; 
that  it  is  horrible  and  unnatural  may  be  at  once  ad- 
mitted, but  there  is  a  vitality  about  it  which  holds 
your  interest  to  the  last;  unrelieved  by  any  flash  of 
sentiment  or  humor,  it  is  still  as  entirely  readable  as 
it  was  once  immensely  popular.  Colman,  the  younger, 
dramatized  it  under  the  name  of  "The  Iron  Chest," 
and  several  generations  of  playgoers  have  shuddered 
at  the  character  of  Falkland,  the  murderer,  who,  and 


232      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

not  Caleb  Williams,  is  the  chief  character.  His  other 
novels  are  soup  made  out  of  the  same  stock,  as  a  chef 
would  say,  with  a  dash  of  the  supernatural  added. 

Godwin  had  now  written  all  that  he  was  ever  to 
write  on  which  the  dust  of  years  has  not  settled,  to  be 
disturbed  only  by  some  curious  student  of  a  forgotten 
literature;  yet  he  supposed  that  he  was  writing  for 
posterity ! 

Meanwhile  he,  who  had  been  living  with  his  head 
in  the  clouds,  became  aware  of  the  existence  of 
"females."  It  was  an  important,  if  belated,  discov- 
ery. He  was  always  an  inveterate  letter-writer,  and 
his  curious  letters  to  a  number  of  women  have  been 
preserved.  He  seems  to  have  had  more  than  a  pass- 
ing fancy  for  Amelia  Alderson,  afterward  Mrs.  Opie, 
the  wife  of  the  artist.  He  was  intimate  with  Mrs. 
Robinson,  the  "Perdita"  of  the  period,  in  which  part 
she  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 
Mrs.  Inchbald  and  Mrs.  Reveley  were  also  friends, 
with  whom  he  had  frequent  misunderstandings.  His 
views  on  the  subject  of  marriage  being  well  known, 
perhaps  these  ladies,  merely  to  test  the  philosopher, 
sought  to  overcome  his  objection  to  "that  worst  of 
institutions."    If  so,  their  efforts  were  unsuccessful. 

Godwin,  however,  seems  to  have  exerted  a  peculiar 
fascination  over  the  fair  sex,  and  he  finally  met  one 
with  whom,  as  he  says,  "friendship  melted  into  love." 
Godwin,  saying  he  would  ne'er  consent,  consented. 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  the  author  of  the  "Rights  of 
Woman,"  now  calling  herself  Mrs.  Imlay,  triumphed. 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  233 

Her  period  of  romance,  followed  fast  by  tragedy,  was 
for  a  brief  time  renew^ed  with  Godwin.  She  had  had 
one  experience,  the  result  of  which  was  a  fatherless 
infant  daughter,  Fanny ;  and  some  time  after  she  took 
up  with  Godwin,  she  urged  upon  him  the  desirability 
of  "marriage  lines." 

Godwin  demurred  for  a  time ;  but  when  Mary  con- 
fided to  him  that  she  was  about  to  become  a  mother, 
a  private  w^edding  in  St.  Pancras  Church  took  place. 
Separate  residence  was  attempted,  in  order  to  conform 
to  Godwin's  theory  that  too  close  familiarity  might 
result  in  mutual  weariness;  but  Godwin  was  not 
destined  to  become  bored  by  his  wife.  She  had  intel- 
ligence and  beauty;  indeed,  it  seems  likely  that  he 
loved  her  as  devotedly  as  it  was  possible  for  one  of  his 
frog-like  nature  to  do.  Shortly  after  the  marriage  a 
daughter  was  born,  and  christened  Mary;  and  a  few 
days  later  the  remains  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  God- 
win were  interred  in  the  old  graveyard  of  St.  Pancras, 
close  by  the  church  which  she  had  recently  left  as  a 
bride. 

No  sketch  of  Godwin's  life  would  be  complete 
without  the  well-known  story  of  the  expiring  wife's 
exclamation:  "I  am  in  heaven";  to  which  Godwin 
replied,  "No,  my  dear,  you  only  mean  that  your 
physical  sensations  are  somewhat  easier." 

Thus,  by  that  "divinity  that  shapes  our  ends 
rough,"  Godwin,  who  did  not  approve  of  marriage 
and  who  had  no  place  in  his  philosophy  for  the  do- 
mestic virtues,  became  within  a  few  months  a  hus- 


234      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

band,  a  widower,  a  stepfather,  and  a  father.  Probably 
no  man  was  less  well  equipped  than  he  for  his  imme- 
diate responsibilities.  He  had  been  living  in  one  house 
and  his  wife  in  another,  to  save  his  face,  as  it  were, 
and  also  to  avoid  interruptions;  but  this  scheme  of  life 
was  no  longer  possible.  A  household  must  be  estab- 
lished ;  some  sort  of  a  family  nurse  became  an  imme- 
diate necessity.  One  was  secured,  who  tried  to  marry 
Godwin  out  of  hand.  To  escape  her  attentions  he  fled 
to  Bath. 

But  his  objections  to  marriage  as  an  institution  were 
waning,  and  when  he  met  Harriet  Lee,  the  daughter 
of  an  actor,  and  herself  a  writer  of  some  small  distinc- 
tion, they  were  laid  aside  altogether.  His  courtship 
of  Miss  Lee  took  the  form  of  interminable  letters. 
He  writes  her:  "It  is  not  what  you  are  but  what 
you  might  be  that  charms  me";  and  he  chides  her 
for  not  being  prepared  faithfully  to  discharge  the 
duties  of  a  wife  and  mother.  Few  women  have  been 
in  this  humor  won;  Miss  Lee  was  not  among  them. 

Godwin  finally  returned  to  London.  He  was  now 
a  man  approaching  middle  age,  cold,  methodical, 
dogmatic,  and  quick  to  take  offense.  He  began  to  live 
on  borrowed  money.  The  story  of  his  life  at  this  time 
is  largely  a  story  of  his  squabbles.  A  more  industrious 
man  at  picking  a  quarrel  one  must  go  far  to  find;  and 
that  the  record  might  remain,  he  wrote  letters  —  not 
short,  angry  letters,  but  long,  serious,  disputatious 
epistles,  such  as  no  one  likes  to  receive,  and  which 
seem  to  demand  and  usually  get  an  immediate  answer. 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  235 

Ritson  writes  him:  "I  wish  you  would  make  it  con- 
venient to  return  to  me  the  thirty  pounds  I  loaned 
you.  My  circumstances  are  by  no  nieans  what  they 
were  at  the  time  I  advanced  it,  nor  did  I,  in  fact, 
imagine  you  would  have  retained  it  so  long."  And 
again:  "Though  you  have  not  the  ability  to  repay  the 
money  I  loaned  you,  you  might  have  integrity  enough 
to  return  the  books  you  borrowed.  I  do  not  wish  to 
bring  against  you  a  railing  accusation,  but  am  com- 
pelled, nevertheless,  to  feel  that  you  have  not  acted 
the  part  of  an  honest  man." 

Godwin  seems  to  have  known  his  weakness,  for  he 
writes  of  himself:  "I  am  feeble  of  tact  and  liable  to 
the  grossest  mistakes  respecting  theory,  taste,  and 
character."  And  again:  "No  domestic  connection  is 
fit  for  me  but  that  of  a  person  who  should  habitually 
study  my  gratification  and  happiness."  This  sounds 
ominous  from  one  who  was  constantly  looking  for  a 
"female  companion";  and  it  was  to  prove  so. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  we  turn,  for  a  mo- 
ment, from  the  sordid  life  of  Godwin  the  philosopher 
to  Godwin  the  dramatist.  He  was  sadly  in  need  of 
funds,  and,  following  the  usual  custom  of  an  author 
in  distress,  had  written  a  tragedy,  for  which  Charles 
Lamb  had  provided  the  epilogue. 

John  Philip  Kemble,  seduced  by  Godwin's  flattery 
and  insistence,  had  finally  been  prevailed  upon  to  put 
it  on  the  stage.  Kemble  had  made  up  his  mind  that 
all  the  good  tragedies  that  could  be  written  had  been 


236      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

written,  and  had  not  his  objections  been  overruled, 
the  tragedy  "Antonio,"  would  never  have  been  pro- 
duced, and  one*  of  Lamb's  most  delightful  essays,  in 
consequence,  never  written. 

With  the  usual  preliminaries,  and  after  much  cor- 
respondence and  discussion,  the  night  of  the  play 
came.  It  was  produced  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  Drury 
Lane  —  what  a  ring  it  has !  Lamb  was  there  in  a  box 
next  to  the  author,  who  was  cheerful  and  confident. 

It  is  a  pity  to  mutilate  Lamb's  account  of  it,  but 
it  is  too  long  to  quote  except  in  fragments. 

The  first  act  swept  by  solemn  and  silent  .  .  .  applause 
would  have  been  impertinent,  the  interest  would  warm 
in  the  next  act.  .  .  .  The  second  act  rose  a  little  in  interest, 
the  audience  became  complacently  attentive.  ...  The 
third  act  brought  the  scene  which  was  to  warm  the  piece 
progressively  to  the  final  flaming  forth  of  the  catastrophe, 
but  the  interest  stood  stone  still.  .  .  . 

It  was  Christmas  time  and  the  atmosphere  furnished 
some  pretext  for  asthmatic  affections.  Some  one  began  to 
cough,  his  neighbors  sympathized  with  him,  till  it  became 
an  epidemic;  but  when  from  being  artificial  in  the  pit  the 
cough  got  naturalized  on  the  stage,  and  Antonio  himself 
seemed  more  intent  upon  relieving  his  own  lungs  than  the 
distress  of  the  author,  then  Godwin  "first  knew  fear,"  and 
intimated  that,  had  he  been  aware  that  Mr.  Kemble  la- 
bored under  a  cold,  the  performance  might  possibly  have 
been  postponed. 

In  vain  did  the  plot  thicken.  The  procession  of  verbiage 
stalked  on,  the  audience  paid  no  attention  whatever  to 
it,  the  actors  became  smaller  and  smaller,  the  stage  re- 
ceded, the  audience  was  going  to  sleep,  when  suddenly 
Antonio  whips  out  a  dagger  and  stabs  his  sister  to  the 


N-  I.  VCR       1*P^ 


CfRM 


ED. 


Theatre  Rpyai,  Drury  Lane, 

Thit  prcfeni  SATURDAY,  December  I3ih,    iSocv*'^..-- 

Their  Mycfliei  Strvanrs  will  ait  a  New  Tragedy  calJrd 

ANTONIO-    ^ 


^:fr 


OR, 


THE  SOLDIER'S  RETURN., 

The  Cha rafters  by 
Mr/    W  R  O  U  G-  H  T  O  K, 
Mr.     BARRYMORE, 

Mr.     K  E  M  RLE, 
Mr.     C      K  E  M  B  L  F,       - 

Mr      P  O  VV  E  L  L, 

Mr.     HOLLAND. 

Mr.  MADDOCK.S,.        Mr.  FISflER, 

Ml.  EVANS,      Ivlr.  WEBB, 

Mrs      S  I  D  D  O  N  S. 

TEe  Piologuc  to  be  Spol^en  by  Mr.  C.  KEMBLE^ 

*     And  the  Epilogue  by  MiCi  HEARD. 

After  the  Trag»i.'>-  wiiJ  fcp  a.lej  »  Fi'rce  eaiJcd 

The  VIRGIN  UNMASK'D, 

Gc<xiwi!3.     Mr.    PACKER, 

hJiiter.    Mr.   SUET  T. 

Coup.-.-.    Mr.    1?  -A  -V  N  1  S  T  E  n.     Tun. 

Ci..i.-.wr.  >: .   T">  1  c;  N  V  ^i. 

"    '      "     Thom-is   Mr.    FTSHER.  fv^:T*»^- 

Mifs   l.ucy  by  tii<-   VOIWC.  LAUV 
wko  j.i^Lrr.:txt  Jive  'ai;  of  v.'i  s  i 'o^.'cn  jn 'he  X  ip  to  «:afj»fwij<h, 
♦  (B«ing  htr  SecoB-i  .\pp«rance  on  t*iu  SiHE*.) 

Tl<e  l>ocrttol>c  ep«»ea  »t  a  \2»a^f  M 'rV'^-'^'*"''^-'*  ^* '2!«»"»«' P«ft  fiX.- 

Pli.~<.«  f.>rlh?|:««n>bttiUno<Mi.  tOS:iRt>OK,  .«  ihr  iWvOSi. .-,  m  t..nl»  »«<WWn»«. 

Boxc.  6..  Scc.mJ  I'rKu-    ;«.     I'lt   ji.   tx  S«ni.  I  -i'nc-   is.     C!  ..  i-  :■■   t  >"..!   I'ncc  ii. 

t-H^f  Giilcry  !«.  &««wl  Pik«  ftJL  >Ui  .\UJNl.V  TO   lit  Rli  I  UHwilD. 


The  Tr.  j-cdv  o*^  nZAltROsor-iiniici  ro  hctpctivfd  w  .(h  iriMbitingap^laitie,  *** 
•  iU  l)«  aiieil,  tor  the  Jleh  tinic  thi*  Seafon.  on  Mon-.'^y  auK. 
The  NKW    r'\NI(V\lMF, 
V.'ili  be  flrcUuitd  wt  MiNHUf,  vhc  tfif*^ 


■''SWff^ 


CHAKLE.S  LAMB' 


PLAY-IJILL  OF  "AXTOXIO,"  BY  GODWIN. 
TXIVERSAL  CONSENT" 


DAMNED  WITH 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  237 

heart.  The  effect  was  as  if  a  murder  had  been  committed 
in  cold  blood,  with  the  audience  betrayed  into  being  ac- 
complices. The  whole  house  rose  in  clamorous  indigna- 
tion —  they  would  have  torn  the  unfortunate  author  to 
pieces  if  they  could  have  got  him. 

The  play  was  hopelessly  and  forever  damned,  and 
the  epilogue  went  down  in  the  crash. 

Over  my  writing-table  hangs  a  dark  oak  frame 
containing  a  souvenir  of  this  performance  —  the 
programme  which  Charles  Lamb  used  on  this  fateful 
evening.  It  is  badly  crumpled,  crumpled  no  doubt  by 
Ella  in  his  agony.  No  reference  is  made  to  the  play 
being  by  Godwin  except  a  note  in  Charles  Lamb's 
handwriting  which  reads,  "By  Godwin,"  with  the  sig- 
nificant words,  "Damned  with  universal  consent." 

Godwin  bore  his  defeat  with  philosophic  calm.  He 
appealed  to  friends  for  financial  assistance  and  to 
posterity  for  applause.  But  it  was  really  a  serious 
matter.  He  was  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  and  now  did 
what  many  another  man  has  done  when  financial 
diflBculties  crowded  thick  and  fast  —  he  married 
again. 

A  certain  Mrs.  Clairmont  fell  in  love  with  God- 
win even  before  she  had  spoken  to  him.  She  was  a 
fat,  miattractive  widow,  and  apparently  did  all  the 
courting.  She  took  lodgings  close  by  Godwin's,  and 
introduced  herself  —  "Is  it  possible  that  I  behold  the 
immortal  Godwin.''" 

This  is  flattery  fed  with  a  knife.  When  a  widow 
makes  up  her  mind  to  marry,  one  of  two  things  must 


238      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

be  done,  and  quickly  —  her  victim  must  run  or  sub- 
mit. Godwin  was  unable  to  run  and  a  marriage  was 
the  result.  Like  his  first  wedding,  it  was  for  a  time 
kept  a  profound  secret. 

An  idea  of  Godwin  and  his  wife  at  this  period  is  to 
be  had  from  Lamb's  letters.  He  refers  constantly  to 
Godwin  as  the  Professor,  and  to  his  wife  as  the  Pro- 
fessor's Rib,  who,  he  says,  "has  turned  out  to  be  a 
damned  disagreeable  woman,  so  much  so  as  to  drive 
Godwin's  old  cronies"  —  among  whom  was  Lamb  — 
"from  his  house." 

It  was  a  difficult  household.  Mrs.  Godwin  had  two 
children  by  her  first  husband :  a  daughter  whose  right 
name  was  Mary  Jane,  but  who  called  herself  Claire  — 
she  lived  to  become  the  mistress  of  Lord  Byron  and 
the  mother  of  his  daughter  AUegra;  also  a  son,  who 
was  raised  a  pet  and  grew  up  to  be  a  nuisance.  God- 
win's immediate  contribution  to  the  establishment  was 
the  illegitimate  daughter  of  his  first  wife,  who  claimed 
Imlay  for  her  father,  and  his  own  daughter  Mary, 
whose  mother  had  died  in  giving  her  birth.  In  due 
course  there  was  born  another  son,  christened  Wil- 
liam, after  his  father. 

Something  had  to  be  done,  and  promptly.  Godwin 
began  a  book  on  Chaucer,  of  whose  life  we  know 
almost  as  little  as  of  Shakespeare's.  In  dealing  with 
Chaucer,  Godwin  introduced  a  method  which  sub- 
sequent writers  have  followed.  Actual  material  be- 
ing scanty,  they  fill  out  the  picture  by  supposing 
what  he  might  have  done  and  seen  and  thought. 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  239 

Godwin  filled  two  volumes  quarto  with  musings 
about  the  fourteenth  century,  and  called  it  a  "Life 
of  Chaucer." 

Mrs.  Godwin,  —  who  was  a  "  managing  woman"  — 
had  more  confidence  in  trade  than  in  literature.  She 
opened  a  bookshop  in  Hanway  Street  under  the  name 
of  Thomas  Hodgkins,  the  manager;  subsequently  in 
Skinner  Street,  under  her  own  name,  M.  J.  Godwin. 
From  this  shop  there  issued  children's  books,  the 
prettiest  and  wisest,  for  "a  penny  plain  and  tuppence 
colored,"  and  more.  "The  Children's  Book-Seller," 
as  he  called  himself,  was  presently  successful,  and 
parents  presented  his  little  volumes  to  their  children, 
with  no  suspicion  that  the  lessons  of  piety  and  good- 
ness which  charmed  away  selfishness  were  published, 
revised,  and  sometimes  written  by  a  philosopher 
whom  they  would  scarcely  venture  to  name.  It  was 
Godwin  who  suggested  to  Charles  Lamb  and  his  sis- 
ter that  the  "Tales  from  Shakespeare"  be  written. 
Godwin's  own  contributions  were  produced  under 
the  name  of  Baldwin. 

Lamb  writes:  "Hazlitt  has  written  some  things  and 
a  grammar  for  Godwin,  but  the  gray  mare  is  the  bet- 
ter horse.  I  do  not  allude  to  Mrs.  Godwin,  but  to  the 
word  grammar,  which  comes  near  gray  mare,  if  you 
observe."  It  would  certainly  surprise  Godwin  could 
he  know  that,  while  his  own  "works"  are  forgotten, 
some  of  the  little  publications  issued  by  the  "Juvenile 
Library,"  41  Skinner  Street,  Snow  HiU,  are  worth 
their  weight  in  gold. 


240      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

The  years  passed  on.  Godwin  lived  more  or  less 
in  constant  terror  of  his  wife,  of  whom  Lamb  writes : 
"Mrs.  Godwin  grows  every  day  in  disfavor  with  God 
and  man.  I  w411  be  buried  with  this  inscription  over 
me:  'Here  lies  Charles  Lamb,  the  woman-hater,  I 
mean  that  hated  one  woman.  For  the  rest,  God  bless 
'em,  and  when  He  makes  any  more,  make  'em 
prettier.'" 

As  he  grew  older  Godwin  moderated  his  views  of 
men  somewhat,  so  that  "he  ceased  to  be  disrespectful 
to  any  one  but  his  Maker";  and  he  once  so  far  for- 
got himself  as  to  say  "God  bless  you"  to  a  friend,  but 
quickly  added,  "to  use  a  vulgar  expression."  He  re- 
mained, however,  always  prepared  to  sacrifice  a 
friend  for  a  principle.  He  seemed  to  feel  that  truth 
had  taken  up  its  abode  in  him,  and  that  any  question 
which  he  had  submitted  to  the  final  judgment  of  his 
own  breast  had  been  passed  upon  finally  and  forever. 

This  search  for  truth  has  a  great  fascination  for  a 
certain  type  of  mind.  It  does  not  appear  dangerous: 
all  one  has  to  do  is  thrust  one's  feet  in  slippers  and 
muse;  but  it  has  probably  caused  as  much  misery  as 
the  search  for  the  pole.  The  pole  has  now  been  dis- 
covered and  can  be  dismissed,  but  the  search  for  truth 
continues.  It  will  always  continue,  for  the  reason  that 
its  location  is  always  changing.  Every  generation 
looks  for  it  in  a  new  place. 

One  night  Lamb,  dropping  in  on  Godwin,  found 
him  discussing  with  Coleridge  his  favorite  problem, 
"Man  as  he  is  and  man  as  he  ought  to  be."    The 


!%^/^/^/f/£ 


{J^eay-  fri^/yy^- 


LETTER  FROM  "VTILLIAM  GODWIN 

I  bought  this  letter  one  hundred  years  to  a  day  after  it  had  been  written,  for  a 
sum  -which  would  have  amazed  its  writer,  and  temporarily,  at  least,  hare  relieved 
him  of  his  financial  difficulties. 


242      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

discussion  seemed  interminable.  "Hot  water  and  its 
better  adjuncts"  had  been  entirely  overlooked.  Fin- 
ally Lamb  stammered  out,  "  Give  me  man  as  he  ought 
not  to  be,  and  something  to  drink."  It  must  have  been 
on  one  of  these  evenings  that  Godwin  remarked  that 
he  wondered  why  more  people  did  not  write  like 
Shakespeare;  to  which  Lamb  replied  that  he  could  — 
if  he  had  the  mind  to. 

The  older  generation  was  passing  away.  Long  be- 
fore he  died  Godwin  was  referred  to  as  though  he 
were  a  forgotten  classic;  but  there  was  to  be  a  revival 
of  interest  in  him,  due  entirely  to  the  poet  Shelley. 
The  mere  mention  of  Shelley's  name  produced  an  ex- 
plosion. He  had  been  expelled  from  Oxford  for  athe- 
ism. Reading  revolutionary  books,  as  well  as  writing 
them,  he  had  come  across,  "Political  Justice"  and 
was  anxious  to  meet  the  author. 

He  sought  him  out,  eventually  made  the  acquain- 
tance of  his  daughter  Mary,  by  this  time  a  beautiful 
and  interesting  girl  of  seventeen  years,  and  in  due 
course  eloped  with  her,  deserting  his  wife  Harriet. 
\Miere  was  Godwin's  philosophy  now?  we  may  well 
ask.  At  no  time  in  his  long  life  was  Godwin  so  ridicu- 
lous as  in  his  relations  with  Shelley. 

In  their  flight,  Shelley  and  Mary  had  taken  with 
them  Mrs.  Godwin's  daughter  Claire.  The  mother 
made  after  the  runaways  post-haste  and  overtook 
them  in  Calais,  her  arrival  creating  consternation  in 
the  camp  of  the  fugitives;  but  they  all  declined  to  re- 
turn.  In  such  scorn  was  Shelley  generally  held,  that 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  243 

the  rumor  that  he  had  bought  both  Godwin's  daugh- 
ter and  his  step-daughter  for  a  sum  in  hand  created 
no  amazement,  the  pity  rather  than  the  possibility  of 
it  being  most  discussed. 

Financial  affairs,  too,  in  Skinner  Street  were  going 
badly.  From  the  record  of  notes  given  and  protested 
at  maturity,  one  might  have  supposed  that  Godwin 
was  in  active  business  in  a  time  of  panic. 

"Don't  ask  me  whether  I  won't  take  none  or 
whether  I  will,  but  leave  the  bottle  on  the  chimley- 
piece  and  let  me  put  my  lips  to  it  when  I  am  so  dis- 
poged."  Such  was  the  immortal  Mrs.  Gamp's  atti- 
tude toward  gin.  Godwin's  last  manner  in  money 
matters  was  much  the  same:  money  he  would  take 
from  any  one  and  in  any  way  when  he  must,  but,  like 
Mrs.  Gamp,  he  was  "dispoged"  to  take  it  indirectly. 

Indignant  with  Shelley,  whose  views  on  marriage 
were  largely  of  his  teaching,  Godwin  refused  to  hold 
any  communication  with  him  except  such  as  would  ad- 
vance his  (Godwin's)  fortunes  at  Shelley's  expense. 
Their  transactions  were  to  be  of  a  strictly  business 
character  (business  with  Shelley!).  We  find  Godwin 
writing  him  and  returning  a  check  for  a  thousand 
pounds  because  it  was  drawn  to  his  order.  How  sure 
he  must  have  been  of  it!  "I  return  your  cheque 
because  no  consideration  can  induce  me  to  utter  a 
cheque  drawn  by  you  and  containing  my  name.  To 
what  purpose  make  a  disclosure  of  this  kind  to  your 
banker?  I  hope  you  will  send  a  duplicate  of  it  by 
the  post  which  will  reach  me  on  Saturday  morning. 


244      AIMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

You  may  make  it  payable  to  Joseph  Hume  or  James 
Martin  or  any  other  name  in  the  whole  directory." 
And  then  Godwin  would  forge  the  name  of  "Joseph 
Hume  or  James  Martin  or  any  other  name  in  the 
whole  directory,"  and  guarantee  the  signature  by 
his  own  indorsement,  and  the  business  transaction 
would  be  complete.  Pretty  high  finance  this,  for  a 
philosopher ! 

Not  until  after  the  death  of  Harriet,  when  Shelley's 
connection  with  Mary  was  promptly  legalized,  would 
Godwin  consent  to  receive  them.  He  then  expressed 
his  great  satisfaction,  and  wrote  to  his  brother  in  the 
country  that  his  daughter  had  married  the  eldest  son 
of  a  wealthy  baronet. 

If  this  world  affords  true  happiness,  it  is  to  be 
found  in  a  home  where  love  and  confidence  increase 
with  years,  where  the  necessities  of  life  come  with- 
out severe  strain,  where  luxuries  enter  only  after  their 
cost  has  been  carefully  considered.  We  are  told  that 
wealth  is  a  test  of  character  —  few  of  us  have  to  sub- 
mit to  it.  Poverty  is  the  more  usual  test.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  be  very  poor  and  maintain  one's  self-respect. 
Godwin  found  it  impossible. 

He,  whose  chief  wish  it  had  been  to  avoid  domestic 
entanglements  and  who  wanted  his  gratification  and 
happiness  studied  habitually,  was  living  in  a  storm- 
centre  of  poverty,  misery,  and  tragedy.  Claire  was 
known  to  have  had  a  baby  by  Lord  Byron,  who  had 
deserted  her;  Harriet  Shelley  had  drowned  herself 
in  the  Serpentine;  Fanny  Godwin,  his  step-daughter, 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  245 

took  poison  at  Bristol.  The  philosopher,  almost  over- 
come, sought  to  conceal  his  troubles  with  a  lie.  To 
one  of  his  correspondents  he  refers  to  Fanny's  hav- 
ing been  attacked  in  Wales  with  an  inflammatory- 
fever  "which  carried  her  off." 

Meanwhile,  the  sufferings  of  others  he  bore  with 
splendid  fortitude.  In  a  very  brief  letter  to  Mary 
Shelley,  answering  hers  in  which  she  told  him  of 
the  death  of  her  child,  he  said,  "You  should  recollect 
that  it  is  only  persons  of  a  very  ordinary  sort  and 
of  a  pusillanimous  disposition  that  sink  long  under  a 
calamity  of  this  nature."  But  he  covered  folio  sheets 
in  his  complainings  to  her,  counting  on  her  sensitive 
heart  and  Shelley's  good-nature  for  sympathy  and 
relief. 

With  the  death  of  Shelley,  Godwin's  affairs  be- 
came desperate.  Taking  advantage  of  some  defect  in 
the  title  of  the  owner  of  the  property  which  he  had 
leased,  he  declined  for  some  time  to  pay  any  rent, 
meanwhile  carrying  on  a  costly  and  vexatious  law- 
suit. Curiously  enough,  in  the  end,  justice  triumphed. 
Godwin  was  obliged  to  pay  two  years'  arrears  of  rent 
and  the  costs  of  litigation.  Of  course,  he  looked  upon 
this  as  an  extreme  hardship,  as  another  indication 
of  the  iniquity  of  the  law.  But  he  was  now  an  old 
man;  very  little  happiness  had  broken  in  upon  him, 
and  his  friends  took  pity  on  him.  Godwin  was  most 
ingenious  in  stimulating  them  to  efforts  on  his  be- 
half. A  subscription  was  started  under  his  direction. 
He  probably  felt  that  he  knew  best  how  to  vary  his 


246      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

api)eals  and  make  them  effectiv^e.  So  much  craft  one 
would  not  have  suspected  in  the  old  beggar. 

One  thing  he  always  was  —  industrious.  He  fin- 
ished a  wretched  novel  and  at  once  began  a  "History 
of  the  Commonwealth."  He  finished  "The  Lives 
of  the  Necromancers,"  and  promptly  began  a  novel; 
but  with  all  his  writings  he  has  not  left  one  single 
phrase  with  which  his  name  can  be  associated,  or  a 
single  thought  worth  thinking. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  he  had  no  sense 
of  humor.  With  his  head  in  the  clouds  and  his  feet 
in  his  slippers,  he  mused  along. 

Hazlitt  tells  a  capital  story  of  him.  Godwin  was 
writing  a  "Life  of  Chatham,"  and  applied  to  his  ac- 
quaintances to  furnish  him  with  anecdotes.  Among 
others,  a  Mr.  Fawcett  told  him  of  a  striking  passage 
in  a  speech  by  Lord  Chatham  on  General  Warrants, 
at  the  delivery  of  which  he  (Mr.  Fawcett)  had  been 
present.  "Every  man's  house  has  been  called  his 
castle.  And  why  is  it  called  his  castle.^  Is  it  because 
it  is  defended  by  a  wall,  because  it  is  surrounded  with 
a  moat?  No,  it  may  be  nothing  more  than  a  straw- 
built  shed.  It  may  be  open  to  all  the  elements;  the 
wind  may  enter  it,  the  rain  may  enter  —  but  the  king 
cannot  enter." 

Fawcett  thought  that  the  point  was  clear  enough; 
but  when  he  came  to  read  the  printed  volume,  he 
found  it  thus:  "Every  man's  house  is  his  castle.  And 
why  is  it  called  so?  Is  it  because  it  is  defended  by  a 
wall,  because  it  is  surrounded  with  a  moat?   No,  it 


A  RIDICULOUS  PHILOSOPHER  247 

may  be  nothing  more  than  a  straw-built  shed.  It 
may  be  exposed  to  all  the  elements;  the  rain  may  enter 
into  it,  all  the  winds  of  heaven  may  whistle  around  it, 
but  the  king  cannot,"  —  and  so  forth. 

Things  were  going  from  bad  to  worse.  Most  of  his 
friends  were  dead  or  estranged  from  him.  He  had 
made  a  sad  mess  of  his  life  and  he  was  very  old.  Fin- 
ally, an  appeal  on  his  behalf  was  made  to  the  govern- 
ment, the  government  against  which  he  had  written 
and  talked  so  much.  It  took  pity  on  him.  Lord  Grey 
conferred  on  him  the  post  of  Yeoman  Usher  of  the 
Exchequer,  whatever  that  may  be,  with  a  residence 
in  New  Palace  Yard.  The  office  was  a  sinecure,  "the 
duties  performed  by  menials."  For  this  exquisite 
phrase  I  am  indebted  to  his  biographer,  C.  Kegan 
Paul.  It  seems  to  suggest  that  a  "menial"  is  one  who 
does  his  duty.  Almost  immediately,  however,  a  re- 
formed Parliament  abolished  the  office,  and  Godwin 
seemed  again  in  danger;  but  men  of  all  creeds  were 
now  disposed  to  look  kindly  on  the  old  man.  He  was 
assured  of  his  position  for  life,  and  writing  to  the  last, 
in  1836  he  died,  at  the  age  of  eighty,  and  was  buried 
by  the  side  of  Mary  WoUstonecraft  in  St.  Pancras 
Churchyard. 

If  there  is  to  be  profit  as  well  as  pleasure  in  the 
study  of  biography,  what  lesson  can  be  learned  from 
such  a  life? 

Many  years  before  he  died  Godwin  had  written  a 
little  essay  on  "Sepulchres."  It  was  a  proposal  for 
erecting  some  memorial  to  the  dead  on  the  spot  where 


248      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

their  remains  were  interred.   Were  one  asked  to  sug- 
gest a  suitable  inscription  for  Godwin's  tomb  it  might 

be 

HOW  NOT  TO  DO  IT. 

In  the  ever-deUghtful  "Angler,"  speaking  of  the 
operation  of  baiting  a  hook  with  a  live  frog,  Walton 
finally  completes  his  general  instructions  with  the  spe- 
cific advice  to  "use  him  as  though  you  loved  him." 
In  baiting  my  hook  with  a  dead  philosopher  I  have 
been  unable  to  accomplish  this.  I  do  not  love  him; 
few  did;  he  was  a  cold,  hard,  self-centred  man  who 
did  good  to  none  and  harm  to  many.  As  a  husband, 
father,  friend,  he  was  a  complete  failure.  His  search 
for  truth  was  as  unavailing  as  his  search  for  "grati- 
fication and  happiness."  He  is  all  but  forgotten.  It 
is  his  fate  to  be  remembered  chiefly  as  the  husband 
of  the  first  suffragette. 

What  has  become  of  the 

Wonderful  things  he  was  going  to  do 
All  complete  in  a  minute  or  two.'' 

Where  are  now  his  novel  philosophies  and  theories? 
To  ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it. 

Constant  striving  for  the  unobtainable  frequently 
results  in  neglect  of  important  matters  close  at  hand 
—  such  things  as  bread  and  cheese  and  children  are 
neglected.  Some  happiness  comes  from  the  successful 
effort  to  make  both  ends  meet  habitually  and  lap 
over  occasionally.  My  philosophy  of  life  may  be 
called  smug,  but  it  can  hardly  be  called  ridiculous. 


IX 

A  GREAT  VICTORLAN 

For  a  time  after  the  death  of  any  author,  the  world, 
if  it  has  greatly  admired  that  author,  begins  to  feel 
that  it  has  been  imposed  upon,  becomes  a  little 
ashamed  of  its  former  enthusiasm  and  ends  by  neg- 
lecting him  altogether.  This  would  seem  to  have  been 
Anthony  Trollope's  case,  to  judge  from  the  occasional 
comment  of  English  critics,  who,  if  they  refer  to  him 
at  all,  do  so  in  some  such  phrase  as,  "About  this  time 
TroUope  also  enjoyed  a  popularity  which  we  can  no 
longer  understand."  From  one  brief  paper  purporting 
to  be  an  estimate  of  his  present  status,  these  nuggets 
of  criticism  are  extracted :  — 

Mr.  TroUope  was  not  an  artist. 

TroUope  had  something  of  the  angry  impatience  of  the 
middle-class  mind  with  all  points  of  view  not  his  own. 

"Tancred"  is  as  far  beyond  anything  that  TroUope 
wrote  as  "Orley  Farm"  is  superior  to  a  Chancery  pleading. 

We  have  only  to  lay  "Alroy"  on  the  same  table  with 
"The  Prime  Minister"  to  see  where  Anthony  TroUope 
stands. 

It  is  not  likely  that  Trollope's  novels  will  have  any 
vogue  in  the  immediate  future;  every  page  brings  its  own 
flavor  of  unreality.   [Italics  mine.] 

And  in  referring  to  Plantagenet  Palliser,  who  figures 
largely  in  so  many  of  his  novels,  the  author  says:  — 


250      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Some  nicknames  are  engaging;  "Planty  Pall"  is  not  one 
of  these.   'J'he  man  is  really  not  worth  writing  about. 

"Is  He  Popenjoy?"  is  perhaps  the  most  readable  of  all 
Mr.  Trollope's  works.  It  is  shorter  than  many. 

Finally,  when  it  is  grudgingly  admitted  that  he  did 
some  good  work,  the  answer  to  the  question,  "Why 
is  such  work  neglected.'*"  is,  "Because  the  world  in 
which  Trollope  lived  has  passed  away."  It  would 
seem  that  absurdity  could  go  no  further. 

American  judgment  is  in  general  of  a  different 
tenor,  although  Professor  Phelps,  of  Yale,  in  his  recent 
volume,  "The  Advance  of  the  English  Novel,"  dis- 
misses Trollope  with  a  single  paragraph,  in  which  is 
embedded  the  remark,  "No  one  would  dare  call  Trol- 
lope a  genius."  Short,  sharp  and  decisive  work  this; 
but  Professor  Phelps  is  clearing  the  decks  for  Mere- 
dith, to  w^hom  he  devotes  twenty  or  more  pages.  I 
respect  the  opinion  of  college  professors  as  much  as 
Charles  Lamb  respected  the  equator;  nevertheless,  I 
maintain  that,  if  Trollope  was  not  a  genius,  he  was  a 
very  great  writer;  and  I  am  not  alone. 

Only  a  few  days  ago  a  cultivated  man  of  affairs, 
referring  to  an  interesting  contemporary  caricature  of 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  which  bore  the  legend,  "Two 
Great  Victorians,"  remarked,  "They  were  great  Vic- 
torians, indeed,  but  I  have  come  to  wonder  in  these 
later  years  whether  Anthonj^  Trollope  will  not  out- 
live them  both."  And  while  the  mere  book-collector 
should  be  careful  how  he  challenges  the  opinion  of 
"one  who  makes  his  living  by  reading  books  and 


...y^Zr^^c:^ 


•".ROV.    A   PnOTO'RAPH      BY    MESS"'    ElUO''  .&     FRY, 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  251 

then  writing  about  them,"  —  the  phrase  is  Professor 
Phelps's,  —  nevertheless,  when  one's  opinion  is  sup- 
ported, as  mine  is,  by  the  authority  of  such  a  novelist 
as  our  own  Howells,  he  may  perhaps  be  forgiven  for 
speaking  up. 

Mr.  Howells  not  long  ago,  in  a  criticism  of  the 
novels  of  Archibald  Marshall,  refers  to  him  as  a  "dis- 
ciple of  Anthony  Trollope,"  whom  he  calls  "the 
greatest  of  the  Victorians."  This  is  high  praise  — 
perhaps  too  high.  Criticism  is,  after  all,  simply  the 
expression  of  an  opinion;  the  important  question  is, 
whether  one  has  a  right  to  an  opinion.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  why  the  author  of  "  Silas  Lapham  "  should 
accord  high  place  to  Trollope. 

Trollope  can  never  be  popular  in  the  sense  that 
Dickens  is  popular,  nor  is  it  so  necessary  to  have  him 
on  the  shelves  as  to  have  Thackeray;  but  any  one 
who  has  not  made  Trollope's  acquaintance  has  a 
great  treat  in  store ;  nor  do  I  know  an  author  who  can 
be  read  and  re-read  with  greater  pleasure.  But  to 
fall  completely  under  the  lure  of  his  —  genius,  I  was 
going  to  say,  but  I  must  be  careful  —  he  should  be 
read  quietly  —  and  thoroughly:  that  is  to  say,  some 
thirty  or  forty  volumes  out  of  a  possible  hundred  or 
more. 

It  may  at  once  be  admitted  that  there  are  no  mag- 
nificent scenes  in  Trollope  as  there  are  in  Thackeray; 
as,  for  example,  where  Rawdon  Crawley  in  "Vanity 
Fair,"  coming  home  unexpectedly,  finds  Becky  enter- 
taining the  Marquis  of  Steyne.    On  the  other  hand, 


252      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

you  will  not  find  in  any  of  his  best  stories  anything  so 
deadly  dull  as  the  endless  talk  about  Georgie  Osborne, 
aged  variously  five,  seven,  or  ten  years,  in  the  same 
volume.  How  often  have  I  longed  to  snatch  that 
infant  from  his  nurse  and  impale  him  on  the  railings 
of  St.  James's  Park! 

For  the  most  part,  people  in  Trollope's  stories  lead 
lives  very  like  our  own,  dependent  upon  how  our 
fortunes  may  be  cast.  They  have  their  failures  and 
their  successes,  and  fall  in  love  and  fall  out  again, 
very  much  as  we  do.  At  last  we  begin  to  know  their 
peculiarities  better  than  w^e  know  our  own,  and  we 
think  of  them,  not  as  characters  in  a  book,  but  as 
friends  and  acquaintances  whom  we  have  grown  up 
with.  Some  we  like  and  some  bore  us  exceedingly  — 
just  as  in  real  life.  His  characters  do  not  lack  style, 
—  the  Duke  of  Omnium  is  a  very  great  person  in- 
deed, —  but  Trollope  himself  has  none.  He  has  little 
or  no  brilliancy,  and  we  like  him  the  better  for  it. 
The  brilliant  person  may  become  very  fatiguing  to 
live  with  —  after  a  time. 

It  is,  however,  in  this  country  rather  than  in  Eng- 
land that  Trollope  finds  his  greatest  admirers.  To- 
day the  English  call  him  "mid-Victorian."  Nothing 
worse  can  be  said.  Even  Dickens  and  Thackeray  have 
to  fight  against  an  injunction  to  this  effect,  w^hich  I 
cannot  believe  is  to  be  made  permanent.  Nothing 
is  more  seductive  and  dangerous  than  prophecy,  but 
one  more  forecast  will  not  greatly  increase  its  bulk, 
and  so  I  venture  to  say  that,  Dickens  and  Thackeray 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  253 

aside,  TroUope  will  outlive  all  the  other  novelists  of 
his  time.  Dickens  has  come  to  stay;  Thackeray  will 
join  the  immortals  with  two  novels  under  his  arm, 
and  perhaps  one  novel  of  George  Eliot  and  one  by 
Charles  Reade  will  survive;  but  Beaconsfield,  Bulwer- 
Lytton,  Kingsley,  and  a  host  of  others  once  famous, 
will  join  the  long  procession  headed  for  oblivion,  led 
by  Ann  Radcliffe. 

And  if  it  be  Trollope's  fate  to  outlast  all  but  the 
greatest  of  his  contemporaries,  it  will  be  due  to  the 
simplicity  and  lack  of  effort  with  which  he  tells  his 
tale.  There  is  no  straining  after  effect  —  his  char- 
acters are  real,  live  men  and  women,  without  a  trace 
of  caricature  or  exaggeration.  His  humor  is  delicious 
and  his  plots  sufficient,  although  he  has  told  us  that 
he  never  takes  any  care  with  them;  and  aside  from 
his  character-drawing,  he  will  be  studied  for  the  life- 
like pictures  of  the  upper-  and  middle-class  English 
society  of  his  time.  Not  one  only,  but  all  of  his 
novels  might  be  called  "The  Way  We  Live  Now." 
Someone  has  said  that  he  is  our  greatest  realist  since 
Fielding;  he  has  been  compared  with  Jane  Austen, 
lacking  her  purity  of  style,  but  dealing  with  a  much 
larger  world. 

"I  do  not  think  it  probable  that  my  name  will  re- 
main among  those  who  in  the  next  century  will  be 
known  as  the  writers  of  English  prose  fiction."  So 
wrote  Trollope  in  the  concluding  chapter  of  his  auto- 
biography. And  he  adds:  "But  if  it  does,  that  per- 
manency of  success  will  probably  rest  on  the  characters 


254      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

of  Plantagenet  Palliser,  Lady  Glencora,  and  the  Rev- 
erend Mr.  Crawley."  Now  it  is  as  certain  that  Trol- 
lope  is  remembered  as  it  is  that  we  are  in  the  next  cen- 
tury; but  it  is  not  so  much  for  any  single  character, 
or  group  of  characters,  or,  indeed,  any  single  book, 
that  he  is  remembered,  as  it  is  for  the  qualities  I  have 
referred  to.  We  may  not  love  the  English  people,  but 
we  all  love  England;  we  love  to  go  there  and  revel 
in  its  past;  and  the  England  that  Trollope  described 
so  accurately  is  rapidly  passing  away;  it  was  going 
perhaps  more  quickly  than  the  English  people  them- 
selves knew,  even  before  this  war  began. 

To  read  Trollope  is  to  take  a  course  in  modern  Eng- 
lish history  —  social  history  to  be  sure,  but  just  as 
important  as  political,  and  much  more  interesting. 
He  has  written  a  whole  series  of  English  political 
novels,  it  is  true,  but  their  interest  is  entirely  aside 
from  politics.  It  may  be  admitted  that  there  are 
dreary  places  in  Trollope,  as  there  are  drearj'^  reaches 
on  the  lovely  Thames,  but  they  can  be  skipped,  and 
more  rapidly;  and,  as  Dr.  Johnson  says,  *'\Vho  but  a 
fool  reads  a  book  through?" 

The  reason  so  many  American  girls  marry,  or  at 
least  used  to  marry.  Englishmen,  was  because  they 
found  them  different  from  the  men  whom  they  had 
grown  up  with;  not  finer,  not  as  fine,  perhaps,  but 
more  interesting.  It  is  for  some  such  reason  as  this 
that  we  get  more  pleasure  out  of  Trollope  than  we 
do  out  of  Howells,  whose  work,  in  some  respects, 
resembles  his.   And  Trollope,  although  he  frequently 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  ^55 

stops  the  progress  of  his  story  to  tell  us  what  a  fine 
thing  an  English  gentleman  is,  never  hesitated  to 
"Paint  the  warts,"  and  it  is  not  altogether  unpleasant 
to  see  the  warts  —  on  others. 

TroUope  takes,  or  appears  to  take,  no  care  with  his 
plots.  The  amazing  thing  about  him  is  that  he  some- 
times gives  his  plot  away;  but  this  seems  to  make  no 
difference.  In  the  dead  centre  of  "Can  You  Forgive 
Her?"  Trollope  says  that  you  must  forgive  her  if  his 
book  is  written  aright.  Lady  Mason,  in  "  Orley  Farm," 
confesses  to  her  ancient  lover  that  she  is  guilty  of  a 
crime;  but  when  she  comes  to  be  tried  for  it,  the  in- 
terest in  her  trial  is  intense;  so  in  "Phineas  Redux," 
where  Phineas  is  tried  for  murder,  the  reader  is  as- 
sured that  he  is  not  guilty  and  that  it  will  come  out 
all  right  in  the  end ;  but  this  does  not  in  the  least  de- 
tract from  the  interest  of  the  story.  Compare  with 
this  Wilkie  Collins's  "Moonstone,"  probably  the  best 
plot  in  English  fiction.  The  moment  that  you  know 
who  stole  the  diamond  and  how  it  was  stolen,  the 
interest  is  at  an  end. 

I  have  referred  to  the  trial  in  "Orley  Farm."  It 
is,  in  my  judgment,  the  best  trial  scene  in  any  novel. 
I  made  this  statement  once  to  a  well-read  lawyer,  and 
he  was  inclined  to  dispute  the  point,  and  of  course 
mentioned  "Pickwick."  I  reminded  him  that  I  had 
said  the  best,  not  the  best  known.  Bardell  vs.  Pick- 
wick is  funny,  inimitably  funny,  never  to  be  forgotten, 
but  burlesque.  The  trial  in  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities" 
is  heroic  romance;  but  the  trial  in  "Orley  Farm"  is 


256      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

real  life.  The  only  trial  which  can  be  compared  to  it 
is  Effie  Deans's,  which  I  confess  is  infinitely  more 
pathetic,  too  much  so  to  be  thoroughly  enjoyed. 

In  "Orley  Farm"  one  can  see  and  hear  Mr.  Furni- 
val,  with  his  low  voice  and  transfixing  eye;  one  knows 
that  the  witness  in  his  hands  is  as  good  as  done  for; 
and  as  for  Mr.  Chaffanbrass,  —  and  did  Dickens  ever 
invent  a  better  name?  —  he  knew  his  work  was  cut 
out  for  him,  and  he  did  it  with  horrible  skill.  One 
sees  plainly  that  the  witnesses  were  trying  to  tell  the 
truth,  but  that  Chaffanbrass,  intent  on  winning  his 
case,  would  not  let  them :  he  was  fighting,  not  for  the 
truth,  but  for  victory.  The  sideplay  is  excellent,  the 
suppressed  excitement  in  the  court-room,  the  judge, 
the  lawyers,  are  all  good. 

At  last  Mr.  Furnival  rises:  "Gentlemen  of  the 
jury,"  he  said,  "I  never  rose  to  plead  a  client's  cause 
with  more  confidence  than  I  now  feel  in  pleading  that 
of  my  friend.  Lady  Mason."  And  after  three  hours 
he  closes  his  great  speech  with  this  touching  bit:  "And 
now  I  shall  leave  my  client's  case  in  your  hands.  As 
to  the  verdict  which  you  will  give,  I  have  no  appre- 
hension. You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  she  has  not 
been  guilty  of  this  terrible  crime.  That  you  w^ill  so 
pronounce  I  do  not  for  a  moment  doubt.  But  I  do 
hope  that  the  verdict  will  be  accompanied  by  some 
expression  on  your  part  which  may  show  to  the  world 
at  large  how  great  has  been  the  wickedness  displayed 
in  the  accusation." 

And  TroUope  adds:   "And  yet  as  he  sat  down  he 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  257 

knew  that  she  had  been  guilty!  To  his  ear  her  guilt 
had  never  been  confessed ;  but  yet  he  knew  that  it  was 
so,  and  knowing  that,  he  had  been  able  to  speak  as 
though  her  innocence  were  a  thing  of  course.  That 
those  witnesses  had  spoken  the  truth  he  also  knew, 
and  yet  he  had  been  able  to  hold  them  up  to  the  exe- 
cration of  all  around  them  as  though  they  had  com- 
mitted the  worst  of  crimes  from  the  foulest  of  mo- 
tives !  And  more  than  this,  stranger  than  this,  worse 
than  this,  —  when  the  legal  world  knew,  —  as  the 
legal  world  soon  did  know,  —  that  all  this  had  been 
so,  the  legal  world  found  no  fault  with  Mr.  Furnival, 
conceiving  that  he  had  done  his  duty  by  his  client  in 
a  manner  becoming  an  English  barrister  and  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman." 

I  have  frequently  heard  people  say  that  they  would 
like  to  attend  a  trial.  It  is  not  worth  while:  trials 
are  either  shocking  or  stupid;  the  best  way  to  see  a 
trial  is  to  read  "Orley  Farm." 

Those  of  us  who  love  Trollope  love  him  for  those 
very  qualities  which  cause  fatigue  in  others.  Our 
lives,  it  may  be,  are  fairly  strenuous;  it  is  hardly 
necessary  for  us  to  have  our  feelings  wrung  of  an  eve- 
ning. When  the  day  is  done  and  I  settle  down  in  my 
arm-chair  by  the  crackling  wood  fire,  I  am  no  longer 
inclined  to  problems,  real  or  imaginary.  I  suppose  the 
average  man  does  his  reading  with  what  comfort  he 
may  after  dinner;  it  is  the  time  for  peace  —  and 
Trollope.  It  may  be  that  the  reader  falls  asleep. 
What  matter.'^  Better  this,  I  should  say,  than  that  he 


258      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

should  be  kept  awake  by  the  dissection  of  a  human 
soul.  This  vivisection  business  is  too  painful.  No, 
give  me  those  long  descriptions  of  house-parties, 
those  chapters  made  up  of  dinner  conversations,  of 
endless  hunting  scenes,  of  editorials  from  newspapers, 
of  meetings  of  the  House,  of  teas  on  the  Terrace,  and 
above  all,  give  me  the  clergy  —  not  in  real  life  for  a 
minute,  but  in  the  pages  of  Trollope. 

But  nothing  happens,  you  say.  I  admit  that  there 
is  very  little  blood  and  no  thunder;  but  not  all  of  us 
care  for  blood  and  thunder.  Trollope  interests  one  in 
a  gentler  way;  in  fact,  you  may  not  know  that  you 
have  been  interested  until  you  look  at  your  watch  and 
find  it  past  midnight.  And  you  can  step  from  one 
book  to  another  almost  without  knowing  it.  The 
characters,  the  situations  repeat  themselves  over  and 
over  again;  your  interest  is  not  always  intense,  but  it 
never  entirely  flags.  You  are  always  saying  to  your- 
self, I'll  just  read  one  more  chapter. 

After  you  have  read  fifteen  or  twenty  of  his  novels, 
—  and  you  will  surely  read  this  number  if  you  read 
him  at  all,  —  you  will  find  that  you  are  as  intimate 
with  his  characters  as  you  are  with  the  members  of 
your  own  family,  and  you  will  probably  understand 
them  a  great  deal  better.  Professor  Phelps  says  that 
he  is  constantly  besieged  with  the  question:  "Where 
can  I  find  a  really  good  story  .'^"  I  would  recommend 
that  he  keep  a  list  of  Trollope's  best  novels  at  hand. 
Surely  they  are  in  accord  with  his  own  definition  of 
what  a  novel  should  be  —  a  good  story  well  told.    I 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  259 

will  make  such  a  list  for  him  if  he  is  in  any  dijQSculty 
about  it. 

I  am  told  by  those  who  know,  that  Trollope's 
sporting  scenes  are  faultless.  Never  having  found  a 
horse  with  a  neck  properly  adjusted  for  me  to  cling 
to,  I  have  given  up  riding.  Seated  in  my  easy-chair, 
novel  in  hand,  in  imagination  I  thrust  my  feet  into 
riding-boots  and  hear  the  click  of  my  spurs  on  the 
gravel,  as  I  walk  to  my  mount;  for  some  one  has 
"put  me  up";  forgetful  of  my  increasing  girth,  I 
rather  fancy  myself  in  my  hunting  clothes.  Astride 
my  borrowed  mount,  following  a  pack  of  hounds, 
I  am  off  in  the  direction  of  Trumpeton  Wood. 

Fox-hunting,  so  fatiguing  and  disappointing  in 
reality,  becomes  a  delight  in  the  pages  of  Trollope. 
The  fox  "breaks"  at  last,  the  usual  accident  happens, 
someone  misjudges  a  brook  or  a  fence  and  is  thrown. 
If  the  accident  is  serious,  they  have  a  big  man  down 
from  London.  I  know  just  who  he  will  be  before  he 
arrives;  and  when  the  services  of  a  solicitor  or  man 
of  business  are  required,  he  turns  out  to  be  an  old 
friend. 

Although  I  have  never  knowingly  killed  a  grouse 
or  a  partridge,  being  utterly  unfamiliar  with  the  use  of 
shooting  irons  of  any  kind,  Trollope  makes  me  long 
for  the  first  of  August,  that  I  may  tell  my  man  to 
pack  my  box  and  take  places  in  the  night  mail  for 
Scotland. 

And  then  comes  the  long  hoped-for  invitation  to 
spend  a  week  end  at  Matching  Priory;  or,  it  may 


260      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

be  that  the  Duke  of  Omnium's  great  estabhshment, 
Gatherum  Castle,  is  to  be  open  to  me.  Dukes  and 
duchesses,  lords  and  ladies,  M.P.'s,  with  the  latest 
news  from  town,  of  ministries  falling  and  forming  — 
I  have  been  through  it  all  before.  I  know  the  com- 
pany; when  a  man  enters  the  room,  I  know  in  advance 
just  what  turn  the  gossip  will  take. 

But,  above  all,  the  clergy!  Was  there  ever  a  more 
wonderful  gallery  of  portraits?  Balzac,  you  will  say. 
I  don't  know — perhaps;  but  beginning  with  the  de- 
lightful old  Warden,  his  rich,  pompous,  but  very  hu- 
man son-in-law.  Archdeacon  Grantley,  Bishop  Proudie 
and  his  shrewish  lady,  and  that  Uriah  Heep  of  clergy- 
men, Mr.  Slope  —  it  is  a  wonderful  assemblage  of 
living  men  and  women  leading  everyday  lives  without 
romance,  almost  without  incident. 

Trollope  was  the  painter,  perhaps  I  should  say  the 
photographer,  par  excellence  of  his  time.  He  set  up  his 
camera  and  took  his  pictures  from  every  point  of  view. 
Possibly  he  was  not  a  very  great  artist,  but  he  was  a 
wonderfully  skillful  workman.  As  he  says  of  himself, 
he  was  at  his  writing-table  at  half-past  five  in  the 
morning;  he  required  of  himself  250  words  every 
quarter  of  an  hour;  his  motto  was  nulla  dies  sine 
tinea  —  no  wet  towel  around  his  brow.  He  went 
"doggedly"  at  it,  as  Dr.  Johnson  says,  and  wrote  an 
enormous  number  of  books  for  a  total  of  over  seventy 
thousand  pounds.  He  looked  upon  the  result  as  com- 
fortable, but  not  splendid. 

"You  are  defied  to  find  in  Trollope  a  remark  or  an 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  261 

action  out  of  keeping  with  the  character  concerned. 
I  would  give  a  pound  for  every  such  instance  found  by 
an  objector,  if  he  would  give  me  a  penny  for  every 
strictly  consistent  speech  or  instance  I  might  find  in 
return."  I  am  quoting  from  a  little  book  of  essays  by 
Street;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  he  has  here  put  his 
finger  upon  one  of  Trollope's  most  remarkable  quali- 
ties: his  absolute  faithfulness.  He  was  a  realist,  if  I 
understand  the  word,  but  he  did  not  care  to  deal  much 
with  the  disagreeable  or  the  shocking,  as  those  whom 
we  call  realists  usually  do. 

His  pictures  of  the  clergy,  of  whom  he  says  that, 
when  he  began  to  write,  he  really  knew  very  little,  de- 
lighted some  and  offended  others.  An  English  critic, 
Hain  Friswell,  a  supreme  prig,  says  they  are  a  dis- 
grace, almost  a  libel;  but  the  world  knows  better.  On 
the  whole  his  clergy  are  a  very  human  lot,  with  faults 
and  weaknesses  just  like  our  own.  To  my  mind  Mrs. 
Proudie,  the  bishop's  lady,  is  a  character  worthy  of 
Dickens  at  his  very  best.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  cari- 
cature or  exaggeration  about  her,  and  the  description 
of  her  reception  is  one  of  the  most  amusing  chapters 
ever  written.  In  another  vein,  and  very  delicate,  is  the 
treatment  of  Mrs.  Proudie's  death.  The  old  Bishop 
feels  a  certain  amount  of  grief :  his  mainstay,  his  life- 
long partner  has  been  taken  from  him;  but  he  re- 
members that  life  with  her  was  not  always  easy;  one 
feels  that  he  will  be  consoled. 

Trollope  tells  an  amusing  story  of  Mrs.  Proudie.  He 
was  writing  one  day  at  the  Athenseum  Club  when  two 


262      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

clergymen  entered  the  room,  each  with  a  novel  in  his 
hand.  Soon  they  began  to  abuse  what  they  were  read- 
ing, and  it  turned  out  that  each  was  reading  one  of  his 
novels.  Said  one,  "Here  is  that  Archdeacon  whom  we 
have  had  in  every  novel  that  he  has  ever  written.'* 
"And  here,"  said  the  other,  "is  that  old  Duke  whom 
he  talked  about  till  everyone  is  tired  of  him.  If  I  could 
not  invent  new  characters  I  would  not  write  novels  at 
all."  Then  one  of  them  fell  foul  of  Mrs.  Proud ie.  It 
was  impossible  for  them  not  to  be  overheard.  Trol- 
lope  got  up  and,  standing  between  them,  acknowl- 
edged himself  to  be  the  culprit;  and  as  to  Mrs. 
Proudie,  said  he,  "I'll  go  home  and  kill  her  before 
the  week  is  out." 

"The  biographical  part  of  literature  is  what  I  love 
best."  After  his  death  in  1882,  his  son  published  an 
autobiography  which  TroUope  had  written  some  years 
before.  Swinburne  calls  it  "exquisitely  comical  and 
conscientiously  coxcombical."  Whatever  this  may 
mean,  it  is  generally  thought  to  have  harmed  his 
reputation  somewhat.  In  it  he  speaks  at  length  of  his 
novels:  tells  us  how  and  when  and  where  he  wrote 
them;  expressing  his  opinion  as  dispassionately  as  if 
he  were  discussing  the  work  of  an  author  he  had 
never  seen.  Painstaking  and  conscientious  he  may 
have  been,  but  in  his  autobiography  he  shows  no  sign 
of  it  —  on  the  contrary,  he  stresses  quantity  rather 
than  quality. 

For  this  very  reason  a  set  —  what  the  publishers 
call  a  "definitive  edition"  —  of  Trollope  will  never 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  263 

be  published.  There  is  no  demand  for  one.  Editions 
of  him  in  sumptuous  binding,  gilt-top,  with  uncut 
(and  unopened)  edges,  under  glass,  will  not  be  found 
in  the  houses  of  those  who  select  their  books  at  the 
same  time  they  make  their  choice  of  the  equipment 
of  their  billiard-room.  The  immortality  of  morocco 
TroUope  will  never  have;  but  on  the  open  shelves  of 
the  man  or  woman  whose  leisure  hours  are  spent  in 
their  libraries,  who  know  what  is  best  in  English  fic- 
tion, there  will  be  found  invariably  six  or  ten  of  his 
novels  in  cloth,  by  this  publisher  or  that,  worn  and 
shapeless  from  much  reading. 

There  is  frequently  some  discussion  as  to  the  se- 
quence in  which  TroUope's  books  should  be  read. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  what  his  American  pub- 
lishers, Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  call  the  "Barsetshire'* 
series  and  the  "Parliamentary"  series.  The  novels 
forming  what  they  term  the  "Manor  House"  series 
have  no  particular  connection  with  each  other.  They 
recommend  the  following  order:  — 

THE  BARSETSHIRE  NOVELS 

The  Warden 

Barchester  Towers 

Dr.  Thome 

Pramley  Parsonage 

The  Small  House  at  Allington 

The  Last  Chronicle  of  Barsel 

THE  PARLIAMENTARY  NOVELS 

The  Eustace  Diamonds 
Can  You  Forgive  Her.'^ 


264      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Phineas  Finn 
Phineas  Redux 
The  Prime  Minister 
The  Duke's  Children 

THE  MANOR-HOUSE  NOVELS 

Orley  Farm 

The  Vicar  of  Bullhampton 

Is  He  Popenjoy? 

John  Caldigate 

The  Belton  Estate 

Good  stories  all  of  them;  and  the  enthusiastic  Trol- 
lopian  may  wish  also  to  read  "The  Three  Clerks,"  in 
which  Chaff anbrass  is  introduced  for  the  first  time; 
"The  Bertrams,"  of  which  Trollope  says,  "I  do  not 
remember  ever  to  have  heard  even  a  friend  speak  well 
of  it";  "Castle  Richmond,"  which  is  hard  going: 
"Miss  MacKenzie,"  in  which  there  is  a  description  of 
a  dinner-party  a  la  Russe,  not  unworthy  of  the  author 
of  Mrs.  Proudie's  reception  in  "Barchester  Towers." 

The  list  is  by  no  means  complete,  but  by  this  time 
we  may  have  enough  and  not  wish  to  make  Lotta 
Schmidt's  acquaintance,  or  give  a  hoot  "Why  Frau 
Frohman  Raised  Her  Prices."  I  once  knew  but  have 
forgotten. 

Personally,  Trollope  was  the  typical  Englishman: 
look  at  his  portrait.  He  was  dogmatic,  self-assertive, 
rather  irritable  and  hard  to  control,  as  his  superiors 
in  the  Post-Office,  in  which  he  spent  the  greater  part 
of  his  life,  well  knew;  not  altogether  an  amiable  char- 
acter, one  would  say.  His  education  was  by  no  means 


A  GREAT  VICTORIAN  265 

first-class,  and  his  English  is  the  English  we  talk 
rather  than  the  English  we  write;  but  he  was  able  to 
use  it  in  a  way  sufficient  for  his  purpose. 

Listen  to  the  conclusion  of  his  Autobiography :  — 

It  will  not,  I  trust,  be  supposed  by  any  reader  that  I 
have  intended  in  this  so-called  autobiography  to  give  a 
record  of  my  inner  life.  No  man  ever  did  so  truly  —  and 
no  man  ever  will.  Rousseau  probably  attempted  it,  but 
who  doubts  but  that  Rousseau  has  confessed  in  much  the 
thoughts  and  convictions,  rather  than  the  facts,  of  his  life? 
If  the  rustle  of  a  woman's  petticoat  has  ever  stirred  my 
blood;  if  a  cup  of  wine  has  been  a  joy  to  me;  if  I  have 
thought  tobacco  at  midnight  in  pleasant  company  to  be 
one  of  the  elements  of  an  earthly  paradise;  if,  now  and 
again,  I  have  somewhat  recklessly  fluttered  a  five-pound 
note  over  a  card-table  —  of  what  matter  is  that  to  any 
reader?  I  have  betrayed  no  woman.  Wine  has  brought 
me  no  sorrow.  It  has  been  the  companionship  of  smoking 
that  I  have  loved,  rather  than  the  habit.  I  have  never 
desired  to  win  money,  and  I  have  lost  none.  To  enjoy  the 
excitement  of  pleasure,  but  to  be  free  from  its  vices  and 
ill  effects  —  to  have  the  sweet,  and  leave  the  bitter  un- 
tasted  —  that  has  been  my  study.  The  preachers  tell  us 
that  this  is  impossible.  It  seems  to  me  that  hitherto  I  have 
succeeded  fairly  well.  I  will  not  say  that  I  have  never 
scorched  a  finger  —  but  I  carry  no  ugly  wounds. 

For  what  remains  to  me  of  life  I  trust  for  my  happiness 
still  chiefly  to  my  work  —  hoping  that  when  the  power  of 
work  is  over  with  me,  God  may  be  pleased  to  take  me  from 
a  world  in  which,  according  to  my  view,  there  can  be  no 
joy;  secondly,  to  the  love  of  those  who  love  me;  and  then 
to  my  books.  That  I  can  read  and  be  happy  while  I  am 
reading,  is  a  great  blessing.  Could  I  remember,  as  some 
men  do,  what  I  read,  I  should  have  been  able  to  call  my- 
self an  educated  man. 


266      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

To  trust  for  happiness  chiefly  to  work  and  books, 
—  to  taste  the  sweet  and  leave  the  bitter  un tasted,  — 
some  may  call  such  a  scheme  of  life  commonplace;  but 
the  most  eventful  lives  are  not  the  happiest  —  prob- 
ably few  authors  have  led  happier  lives  than  Anthony 
Trollope. 

One  final  word  I  am  forced  to  say.  Since  this  awful 
war  broke  out,  I  read  him  in  a  spirit  of  sadness.  The 
England  that  he  knew  and  loved  and  described  with 
such  pride  is  gone  forever.  It  will,  to  the  coming  gen- 
eration, seem  almost  as  remote  as  the  England  of 
Elizabeth.  The  Church  will  go,  the  State  will  change, 
and  the  common  people  will  come  into  their  own.  The 
old  order  of  things  among  the  privileged  class,  much 
pay  for  little  work,  will  be  reversed.  It  will  be  useless 
to  look  for  entailed  estates  and  a  leisure  class  —  for 
all  that  made  England  a  delightful  retreat  to  us.  If 
England  is  to  continue  great  and  powerful,  as  I  earn- 
estly hope  and  believe  she  is,  England  must  be  a  bet- 
ter place  for  the  poor  and  not  so  enervating  for  the 
rich,  or  both  rich  and  poor  are  valiantly  fighting  her 
battles  in  vain. 


i?or  tbe  totij  tbat  J  pri3c  ii  ponDet, 
?ltt>a)?  on  tbc  unfllaseli  ^heVatfi', 
^be  bulgeb  anb  tbe  bcui^eb  octabojj, 
^be  bear  anb  tbe  bump?  tmcVot^. 

?tui8tin  ©objrfon. 


X 

TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW 

The  King  of  England  is  not  a  frequent  visitor  to  the 
City  of  London,  meaning  by  "the  City"  that  square 
mile  or  so  of  old  London  whose  political  destinies 
are  in  the  keeping  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  of  which  the 
Bank  of  England  is  almost  the  exact  centre,  St.  Paul's 
the  highest  ground,  and  Temple  Bar  the  western 
boundary. 

It  might  be  said  that  the  King  is  the  only  man  in 
England  who  has  no  business  in  the  City.  His  duties 
are  in  the  West  End  —  in  Westminster;  but  to  the 
City  he  goes  on  state  occasions;  and  it  so  happened 
that  several  years  ago  I  chanced  to  be  in  London  on 
one  of  them. 

I  had  reached  London  only  the  night  before,  and 
I  did  not  know  that  anything  out  of  the  ordinary  was 
going  on,  until  over  my  breakfast  of  bacon  and  eggs 
—  and  such  bacon!  —  I  unfolded  my  "Times"  and 
learned  that  their  Majesties  were  that  morning  going 
in  state  to  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  to  give  thanks  for 
their  safe  return  from  India.  It  was  not  known  that 
they  had  been  in  any  great  peril  in  India;  but  royal 
progresses  are,  I  suppose,  always  attended  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  danger.  At  any  rate  the  King  and 
Queen  had  reached  home  safely,  and  wanted  to  give 


268      AlVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

thanks,  according  to  historic  precedent,  in  St.  Paul's; 
and  the  ceremony  was  set  for  that  very  morning. 

Inquiring  at  the  office  of  my  hotel  in  Piccadilly,  I 
learned  that  the  Royal  procession  would  pass  the  doors 
in  something  over  an  hour,  and  that  the  windows  of 
a  certain  drawing-room  were  at  my  disposal.  It  would 
have  been  more  comfortable  to  view  the  Royal  party 
from  a  drawing-room  of  the  Carlton;  but  what  I 
wanted  to  see  would  take  place  at  Temple  Bar;  so, 
my  breakfast  dispatched,  I  sallied  forth  to  take  up 
my  position  in  the  crowded  street. 

It  was  in  February  —  a  dark,  gloomy,  typical  Lon- 
don morning.  The  bunting  and  decorations,  every- 
where apparent,  had  suffered  sadly  from  the  previous 
night's  rain  and  were  flapping  dismally  in  the  cold, 
raw  air;  and  the  streets,  though  crowded,  wore  a  look 
of  hopeless  dejection. 

I  am  never  so  happy  as  in  London.  I  know  it  well, 
if  a  man  can  be  said  to  know  London  well,  and  its 
streets  are  always  interesting  to  me;  but  the  Strand 
is  not  my  favorite  street.  It  has  changed  its  character 
sadly  in  recent  years.  The  Strand  no  longer  suggests 
interesting  shops  and  the  best  theatres,  and  I  grieve 
to  think  of  the  ravages  that  time  and  Hall  Caine  have 
made  in  the  Lyceum,  which  was  once  Irving's,  where 
I  saw  him  so  often  in  his,  and  my,  heyday.  However, 
my  way  took  me  to  the  Strand,  and,  passing  Charing 
Cross,  I  quoted  to  myself  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  re- 
mark: "Fleet  Street  has  a  very  animated  appearance; 
but  the  full  tide  of  human  existence  is  at  Charing 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  269 

Cross."  As  I  neared  the  site  of  Temple  Bar,  how- 
ever, I  observed  that,  for  this  morning,  at  any  rate, 
the  tide  was  setting  toward  the  City. 

My  progress  through  the  crowd  was  slow,  but  I 
finally  reached  my  objective  point,  the  Griffin,  which 
marks  the  spot  where  for  many  centuries  Temple  Bar 
stood.  Taking  up  my  position  just  in  front  of  the 
rather  absurd  monument,  which  forms  an  "island" 
in  the  middle  of  the  street,  I  waited  patiently  •  for 
the  simple  but  historic  and  picturesque  ceremony  to 
begin. 

Before  long  the  city  dignitaries  began  to  arrive. 
First  came  the  Sheriffs  and  Aldermen  in  coaches  of 
state,  wearing  their  scarlet-and-ermine  robes.  Fi- 
nally, a  coach  appeared,  out  of  the  window  of  which 
protruded  the  end  of  the  great  mace,  emblem  of 
City  authority;  and  at  last  the  Lord  Mayor  himself, 
in  all  his  splendor,  in  a  coach  so  wonderful  in  its  gold 
and  color  that  one  might  have  supposed  it  had  been 
borrowed  from  Cinderella  for  the  occasion. 

While  I  was  wondering  how  many  times  and  under 
what  varying  conditions  this  bit  of  pageantry  had 
been  enacted  on  this  very  spot,  a  slight  wave  of  cheer- 
ing down  the  Strand  apprised  me  of  the  approach  of 
the  Royal  procession.  The  soldiers  who  lined  both 
sides  of  the  street  became,  at  a  word  of  command, 
more  immovable  than  ever,  standing  at  "attention," 
if  that  is  the  word  which  turns  men  into  statues.  At 
the  same  time  a  band  began  the  national  anthem,  and 
this  seemed  the  signal  for  the  Maj'or  and  his  attend- 


270      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

ants  to  leave  their  coaches  and  group  themselves  just 
east  of  the  monument.  A  moment  later  the  Royal 
party,  in  carriages  driven  by  postilions  with  outriders, 
swept  by;  but  the  state  carriage  in  which  sat  the  King 
and  Queen  was  brought  to  a  halt  immediately  in  front 
of  the  City  party. 

The  Lord  ^layor,  carrying  his  jeweled  sword  in  his 
hand,  bowed  low  before  his  sovereign,  who  remained 
seated  in  the  open  carriage.  Words,  I  presume,  were 
spoken.  I  saw  the  Lord  Mayor  extend  his  greetings 
and  tender  his  sword  to  the  King,  who,  saluting, 
placed  his  hand  upon  its  hilt  and  seemed  to  congratu- 
late the  City  upon  its  being  in  such  safe  keeping.  The 
crowd  cheered  —  not  very  heartily;  but  history  was 
in  the  making,  and  the  true  Londoner,  although  he 
might  not  like  to  confess  it,  still  takes  a  lively  interest 
in  these  scenes  which  link  him  to  the  past. 

While  the  City  officials,  their  precious  sword  —  it 
was  a  gift  from  Queen  Elizabeth  —  still  in  their  keep- 
ing, were  returning  to  their  coaches  and  taking  their 
places,  there  was  a  moment's  delay,  which  gave  me  a 
good  opportunity  of  observing  the  King  and  his  con- 
sort. He  looked  very  like  his  photograph  and  equally 
like  his  cousin,  the  Tsar  of  Russia.  He  had  a  weak  and 
utterly  expressionless  face,  and  seemingly  was  much 
bored  by  the  proceedings.  The  Queen  looked  every 
inch  —  not  a  Queen  but  a  very  plain  Englishwoman, 
without  either  grace  or  beauty.  She  is  not  popular  in 
London.  I  have  never  heard  her  spoken  of  with  either 
affection  or  enthusiasm;  but  I  noticed  in  the  descrip- 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  271 

tion  of  the  scene,  in  the  papers  next  day,  that  they 
commented  loyally  upon  what  they  termed  the  "gra- 
cious charm  of  Queen  Mary." 

The  Lord  Mayor  and  his  suite,  having  resumed 
their  places,  were  driven  rapidly  down  Fleet  Street  to- 
ward St.  Paul's,  the  Royal  party  following  them.  The 
whole  ceremony  at  Temple  Bar,  the  shadow  of  former 
ceremonies  hardly  more  real,  had  not  occupied  much 
over  five  minutes.  The  crowd  dispersed.  Fleet  Street 
and  the  Strand  immediately  resumed  their  wonted 
appearance  except  for  the  bunting  and  decorations, 
and  I  was  left  to  discuss  with  myself  the  question, 
what  does  this  King  business  really  mean.^^ 

Many  years  ago  Andrew  Carnegie  wrote  a  book, 
"Triumphant  Democracy,"  in  which,  as  I  vaguely 
remember,  he  likened  our  form  of  government  to  a 
pyramid  standing  on  its  base,  while  a  pyramid  rep- 
resenting England  was  standing  on  its  apex.  There  is 
no  doubt  whatever  that  a  pyramid  looks  more  com- 
fortable on  its  base  than  on  its  apex;  but  let  us  drop 
these  facile  illustrations  of  strength  and  weakness  and 
ask  ourselves,  "In  what  way  are  we  better  off,  polit- 
ically, than  the  English?" 

In  theory,  the  king,  from  whom  no  real  authority 
flows,  may  seem  a  little  bit  ridiculous,  but  in  practice 
how  admirably  the  English  have  learned  to  use  him ! 
If  he  is  great  enough  to  exert  a  powerful  influence 
on  the  nation  for  good,  his  position  gives  him  an 
immense  opportunity.  How  great  his  power  is,  we 
do  not  know,  —  it  is  not  written  down  in  books,  — 


272      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

but  he  has  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  not  the  full 
confidence  of  the  people,  if  they  mistrust  his  judg- 
ment, his  power  is  circumscribed:  wise  men  rule  and 
Majesty  does  as  Majesty  is  told  to  do. 

**  We  think  of  our  Prime  Minister  as  the  wisest  man 
in  England  for  the  time  being,"  says  Bagehot.  The 
English  scheme  of  government  permits,  indeed,  neces- 
sitates, her  greatest  men  entering  politics,  as  we  call 
it.   Is  it  so  with  us? 

Our  plan,  however  excellent  it  may  be  in  theory, 
in  practice  results  in  our  having  constantly  to  sub- 
mit ourselves  —  those  of  us  who  must  be  governed  — 
to  capital  operations  at  the  hands  of  amateurs  who 
are  selected  for  the  job  by  drawing  straws.  That  w^e 
escape  with  our  lives  is  due  rather  to  our  youth  and 
hardy  constitution  than  to  the  skill  of  the  operators. 

To  keep  the  king  out  of  mischief,  he  may  be  set 
the  innocuous  task  of  visiting  hospitals,  opening  ex- 
positions, or  laying  corner-stones.  Tapping  a  block 
of  granite  with  a  silver  trowel,  he  declares  it  to  be 
"well  and  truly  laid,"  and  no  exception  can  be  taken 
to  the  masterly  manner  in  w^hich  the  work  is  done. 
Occasionally,  once  a  year  or  so,  plain  Bill  Smith,  who 
has  made  a  fortune  in  the  haberdashery  line,  say, 
bends  the  knee  before  him  and  at  a  tap  of  a  sword 
across  his  shoulder  arises  Sir  William  Smith.  Bill 
Smith  was  not  selected  for  this  honor  by  the  king 
himself;  certainly  not!  the  king  probably  never  heard 
of  him;  but  the  men  who  rule  the  nation,  those  in 
authority,  for  reasons  sufficient  if  not  good,  selected 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  273 

Smith  for  "birthday  honors,"  and  he  is  given  a  stake 
in  the  nation. 

And  so  it  goes.  The  knight  may  become  a  baronet, 
the  baronet  a  baron,  the  baron  a  duke  —  this  last  not 
often  now,  only  for  very  great  service  rendered  the 
Empire;  and  with  each  advance  in  rank  comes  in- 
creases of  responsibility  —  in  theory,  at  least.  Have 
our  political  theories  worked  out  so  well  that  we  are 
justified  in  making  fun  of  theirs  as  we  sometimes  do? 
I  think  not.  After  our  country  has  stood  as  well  as 
England  has  the  shocks  which  seven  or  ten  centuries 
may  bring  it,  we  may  have  the  right  to  say,  "We 
order  these  things  better  at  home." 

WTiile  musing  thus,  the  Strand  and  Temple  Bar  of 
a  century  and  a  half  ago  rise  up  before  me,  and  I 
notice  coming  along  the  footway  a  tall,  burly  old 
man,  walking  with  a  rolling  gait,  dressed  in  a  brown 
coat  with  metal  buttons,  knee-breeches,  and  worsted 
stockings,  with  large  silver  buckles  on  his  clumsy 
shoes.  He  seems  like  a  wise  old  fellow,  so  I  approach 
him  and  tell  him  who  I  am  and  of  my  perplexities. 

"What!  Sir,  an  American?  They  are  a  race  of  con- 
victs and  ought  to  be  thankful  for  anything  we  allow 
them  short  of  hanging."  And  then,  seeing  me  some- 
what disconcerted,  he  adds  less  ferociously:  "I  would 
not  give  half  a  guinea  to  live  under  one  form  of  gov- 
ernment rather  than  another."  Saying  which,  he 
turns  into  a  court  off  Fleet  Street  and  is  lost  to 
view. 


274      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

It  was  only  after  he  had  disappeared  that  I  reahzed 
that  I  had  been  speaking  to  Dr.  Johnson. 

Just  when  the  original  posts,  bars,  and  chains  gave 
way  to  a  building  known  as  Temple  Bar,  we  have 
no  means  of  knowing.  Honest  John  Stow,  whose 
effigy  in  terra  cotta  still  looks  down  on  us  from  the 
wall  of  the  Church  of  St.  Andrew  Undershaft,  pub- 
lished his  famous  "Survay  of  [Elizabethan]  London" 
in  1598.  In  it  he  makes  scant  mention  of  Temple 
Bar;  and  this  is  the  more  remarkable  because  he 
describes  so  accurately  many  of  the  important  build- 
ings, and  gives  the  exact  location  of  every  court 
and  lane,  every  pump  and  well,  in  the  London  of 
his  day. 

Stow  assures  his  readers  that  his  accuracy  cost  him 
many  a  weary  mile's  travel  and  many  a  hard-earned 
penny,  and  his  authority  has  never  been  disputed. 
He  refers  to  the  place  several  times,  but  not  to  the 
gate  itself.  "WTiy  this  is,  I  have  not  heard,  nor  can 
I  conjecture,"  to  use  a  phrase  of  his;  but  we  know 
that  a  building  known  as  Temple  Bar  must  have  been 
standing  when  the  "Survay"  appeared;  for  it  is 
clearly  indicated  in  Aggas's  pictorial  map  of  London, 
published  a  generation  earlier;  otherwise  we  might 
infer  that  in  Stow's  time  it  was  merely  what  he  terms 
it,  a  "barre"  separating  the  liberties  of  London  from 
Westminster  —  the  city  from  the  shire.  It  is  obvious 
that  it  gets  its  name  from  that  large  group  of  build- 
ings known  as  the  Temple,  which  lies  between  Fleet 
Street  and  the  river,  long  the  quarters  of  the  Knights 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  275 

Templar,  and  for  centuries  past  the  centre  of  legal 
learning  in  England. 

Referring  to  the  "new  Temple  by  the  Barre," 
Stow  tells  us  that  "over  against  it  in  the  high  streets 
stand  a  payre  of  stockes";  and  adds  that  the  whole 
street  "from  the  Barre  to  the  Savoy  was  commanded 
to  be  paved  in  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  the  reign  of 
King  Henry  the  Sixt"  (this  sturdy  lad,  it  will  be 
remembered,  began  to  "reign"  when  he  was  only 
nine  months  old),  with  "tole  to  be  taken  towards  the 
charges  thereof."  This  practice  of  taking  "tole"  from 
all  non-freemen  at  Temple  Bar  continued  until  after 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  fine  con- 
fusion it  must  have  caused.  The  charge  of  two  pence 
each  time  a  cart  passed  the  City  boundary  finally 
aroused  such  an  outcry  against  the  "  City  turnpike" 
that  it  was  done  away  with.  Whoever  received  this 
revenue  must  have  heartily  bewailed  the  passing  of 
the  good  old  days ;  for  a  few  years  before  the  custom 
was  abandoned,  the  toll  collected  amounted  to  over 
seven  thousand  pounds  per  annum. 

The  first  reference  which  seems  to  suggest  a  build- 
ing dates  back  to  the  time  when  "Sweet  Anne  Bul- 
len"  passed  from  the  Tower  to  her  coronation  at 
Westminster,  at  which  time  the  Fleet  Street  conduit 
poured  forth  red  wine,  and  the  city  waits  —  or  min- 
strels—  "made  music  like  a  heavenly  noyse."  We 
know,  too,  that  it  was  "a  rude  building,"  and  that  it 
was  subsequently  replaced  by  a  substantial  timber 
structure  of  classic  appearance,  with  a  pitched  roof. 


276      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

spanning  the  street  and  gabled  at  each  end.  Old 
prints  show  us  that  it  was  composed  of  three  arches  — 
a  large  central  arch  for  vehicular  traffic,  with  smaller 


OLD  TKMPLE  BAR 
Demolished  in  1666 


arches,  one  on  each  side,  over  the  footway.  All  of  the 
arches  were  provided  with  heavy  oaken  doors,  stud- 
ded with  iron,  which  could  be  closed  at  night,  or 
when  unruly  mobs,  tempted  to  riot,  threatened  —  and 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  277 

frequently  carried  out  their  threat  —  to  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  city. 

The  City  proper  terminated  at  Lud  Gate,  about 
halfway  up  Ludgate  Hill;  but  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
City  extended  to  Temple  Bar,  and  those  residing  be- 
tween the  two  gates  were  said  to  be  within  the  liber- 
ties of  the  City  and  enjoyed  its  rights  and  privileges, 
among  them  that  of  passing  through  Temple  Bar  with- 
out paying  toll.  Although  Lud  Gate  was  the  most 
important  gate  of  the  old  city,  originally  forming  a 
part  of  the  old  London  wall,  from  time  immemorial 
Temple  Bar  has  been  the  great  historic  entrance  to 
the  City.  At  Temple  Bar  it  was  usual,  upon  an  ac- 
cession to  the  throne,  the  proclamation  of  a  peace, 
or  the  overthrow  of  an  enemy,  for  a  state  entry  to  be 
made  into  the  City.  The  sovereign,  attended  by  his 
trumpeters,  would  proceed  to  the  closed  gate  and 
demand  entrance.  From  the  City  side  would  come 
the  inquiry,  "Who  comes  here?"  and  the  herald 
having  made  reply,  the  Royal  party  would  be  ad- 
mitted and  conducted  to  the  lord  mayor. 

With  the  roll  of  years  this  custom  became  slightly 
modified.  When  Queen  Elizabeth  visited  St.  Paul's 
to  return  thanks  for  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada, 
we  read  that,  upon  the  herald  and  trumpeters  having 
announced  her  arrival  at  the  Gate,  the  Lord  Mayor 
advanced  and  surrendered  the  city  sword  to  the 
Queen,  who,  after  returning  it  to  him,  proceeded  to 
St.  Paul's.  On  this  occasion  —  as  on  all  previous 
occasions  —  the  sovereign  was  on  horseback.  Queen 


278      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Elizabeth  having  declined  to  ride,  as  had  been  sug- 
gested, in  a  vehicle  drawn  by  horses,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  new-fangled  and  effeminate.  For  James 
I,  for  Charles  I  and  Cromwell  and  Charles  II,  similar 
ceremonies  were  enacted,  the  coronation  of  Charles  II 
being  really  magnificent  and  testifying  to  the  joy  of 
England  in  again  having  a  king. 

Queen  Anne  enters  the  City  in  a  coach  drawn  by 
eight  horses,  "  none  with  her  but  the  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough, in  a  very  plain  garment,  the  Queen  full  of 
jewels,"  to  give  thanks  for  the  victories  of  the  duke 
abroad;  and  so  the  stately  historic  procession  winds 
through  the  centuries,  always  pausing  at  Temple  Bar, 
right  down  to  our  own  time. 

But  to  return  to  the  actual  "fabrick,"  as  Dr.  John- 
son would  have  called  it.  We  learn  that,  soon  after 
the  accession  of  Charles  11,  old  Temple  Bar  was 
marked  for  destruction.  It  was  of  wood,  and,  al- 
though "newly  paynted  and  hanged"  for  state  oc- 
casions, it  was  felt  that  something  more  worthy  of 
the  great  city,  to  which  it  gave  entrance,  should  be 
erected.  Inigo  Jones  was  consulted  and  drew  plans 
for  a  new  gate,  his  idea  being  the  erection  of  a  really 
triumphant  arch;  but,  as  he  died  soon  after,  his  plan 
was  abandoned.  Other  architects  with  other  plans 
came  forward.  At  length  the  King  became  interested 
in  the  project  and  promised  money  toward  its  accom- 
plishment; but  Charles  II  was  an  easy  promiser,  and 
as  the  money  he  promised  belonged  to  someone  else, 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  279 

nothing  came  of  it.  While  the  project  was  being  thus 
discussed,  the  plague  broke  out,  followed  by  the  fire 
which  destroyed  so  much  of  old  London,  and  public 
attention  was  so  earnestly  directed  to  the  rebuilding 
of  London  itself  that  the  gate,  for  a  time,  was  for- 
gotten. 

Temple  Bar  had  escaped  the  flames,  but  the  re- 
building of  London  occasioned  by  the  fire  gave  Chris- 
topher Wren  his  great  opportunity.  A  new  St.  Paul's 
with  its  "mighty  mothering  dome,"  a  lasting  mon- 
ument to  his  genius,  was  erected,  and  churches  in- 
numerable, the  towers  and  spires  of  which  still  point 
the  way  to  heaven  —  instructions  which,  we  may 
suspect,  are  neglected  when  we  see  how  deserted  they 
are;  but  they  serve,  at  least,  to  add  charm  and  in- 
terest to  a  ramble  through  the  City. 

Great  confusion  resulted  from  the  fire,  but  London 
was  quick  to  see  that  order  must  be  restored,  and  it  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  Wren's  scheme  for  replan- 
ning  the  entire  burned  district  was  not  carried  out. 
Fleet  Street  was  less  than  twenty -four  feet  wide  at 
Temple  Bar  —  not  from  curb  to  curb,  for  there  was 
none,  but  from  house  to  house.  This  was  the  time  to 
rebuild  London ;  although  something  was  done,  much 
was  neglected,  and  Wren  was  finally  commissioned 
to  build  a  new  gate  of  almost  the  exact  dimensions  of 
the  old  one. 

The  work  was  begun  in  1670  and  progressed  slowly, 
for  it  was  not  finished  until  two  years  later.  WTiat 
a  fine  interruption  to  traffic  its  rebuilding  must  have 


580      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

occasioned!  Constructed  entirely  of  Portland  stone, 
the  same  material  as  St.  Paul's,  it  consisted,  like  the 
old  one,  of  three  arches  —  a  large  flattened  centre 


TEMPLE  HAK  IN  DR.  JOHNSON'S  TIME 


arch,  with  small  semicircular  arches  on  either  side. 
Above  the  centre  arch  was  a  large  window,  which  gave 
light  and  air  to  a  spacious  chamber  within;  while  on 
either  side  of  the  window  were  niches,  in  which  were 
placed  statues  of  King  James  and  his  Queen,  Anne 


TEIVIPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  281 

of  Denmark,  on  the  City  side  and  of  Charles  I  and 
Charles  II  on  the  Westminster  side. 

The  curious  may  wish  to  know  that  the  mason  was 
Joshua  Marshall,  whose  father  had  been  master- 
mason  to  Charles  I;  that  the  sculptor  of  the  statues 
was  John  Bushnell,  who  died  insane;  and  that  the 
cost  of  the  whole,  including  the  statues  at  four  hun- 
dred and  eighty  pounds,  was  but  thirteen  hundred 
and  ninety-seven  pounds,  ten  shillings. 

The  fog  and  soot  and  smoke  of  London  soon  give 
the  newest  building  an  appearance  of  age,  and  mer- 
cifully bring  it  into  harmony  with  its  surroundings. 
Almost  before  the  new  gate  was  completed,  it  had 
that  appearance;  and  before  it  had  a  chance  to  grow 
really  old,  there  arose  a  demand  for  its  removal  alto- 
gether. Petitions  praying  for  its  destruction  were  cir- 
culated and  signed.  Verse,  if  not  poetry,  urging  its 
retention  was  written  and  printed. 

If  that  Gate  is  pulled  down,  'twixt  the  Court  and  the  City, 
You  '11  blend  in  one  mass,  prudent,  worthless  and  witty. 
If  you  league  cit  and  lordling,  as  brother  and  brother. 
You'll  break  order's  chain  and  they'll  war  with  each  other. 
Like  the  Great  Wall  of  China,  it  keeps  out  the  Tartars 
From  making  irruptions,  where  industry  barters. 
Like  Samson's  Wild  Foxes,  they  '11  fire  your  houses, 
And  madden  your  spinsters,  and  cousin  your  spouses. 
They  '11  destroy  in  one  sweep,  both  the  Mart  and  the  Forum, 
Which  your  fathers  held  dear,  and  their  fathers  before  'em. 

But,  attacked  by  strong  city  men  and  defended 
only  by  sentiment,  Temple  Bar  still  continued  to 
impede  traffic  and  shut  out  light  and  air,  while  the 


282      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

generations  who  fought  for  its  removal  passed  to  their 
rest.  It  became  the  subject  of  jokes  and  conundrums. 
^Miy  is  Temple  Bar  like  a  lady's  veil.'^  it  was  asked; 
the  answer  being  that  both  must  be  raised  (razed)  for 
busses.  The  distinction  between  a  buss  and  a  kiss, 
suggested  by  Herrick,  of  whom  the  eighteenth-cen- 
tury City  man  never  heard,  would  have  been  lost; 
but  we  know  that  — 

Kissing  and  bussing  differ  both  in  this, 
We  buss  our  wantons  and  our  wives  we  kiss. 

No  account  of  Temple  Bar  would  be  complete  with- 
out reference  to  the  iron  spikes  above  the  centre  of 
the  pediment,  on  which  were  placed  occasionally  the 
heads  of  persons  executed  for  high  treason.  This 
ghastly  custom  continued  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  gave  rise  to  many  stories, 
most  of  them  legendary,  but  which  go  to  prove,  were 
proof  necessary,  that  squeamishness  was  not  a  com- 
mon fault  in  the  days  of  the  Georges. 

To  refer,  how^ever  briefly,  to  the  taverns  which 
clustered  east  and  west  of  Temple  Bar  and  to  the 
authors  who  frequented  them,  would  be  to  stop  the 
progress  of  this  paper  —  and  begin  another.  Dr. 
Johnson  only  voiced  public  opinion  when  he  said  that 
a  tavern  chair  is  a  throne  of  human  felicity.  For  more 
than  three  centuries  within  the  shadow  of  Temple 
Bar  there  was  an  uninterrupted  flow  of  wine  and  wit 
and  wisdom,  with,  doubtless,  some  wickedness.  From 
Ben  Jonson,  whose  favorite  resort  was  The  Devil, 
adjoining  the  Bar  on  the  south  side,  down  to  Tenny- 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW 


283 


son,  who  frequented  The  Cock,  on  the  north,  came 
the  same  cry,  for  good  talk  and  good  wine. 

O  plump  head-waiter  at  the  Cock, 
To  which  I  most  resort, 
How  goes  the  time?   'Tis  five  o'clock  — 
Go  fetch  a  pint  of  port. 

This  does  not  sound  like  the  author  of  "Locksley 
Hall,"  but  it  is;  and  while  within  the  taverns,  "the 
chief  glory  of  England,  its  authors,"  were  writing  and 
talking  themselves  into  immortality,  just  outside 
there  ebbed  and  flowed  beneath  the  arches  of  Temple 
Bar,  east  in  the  morning  and  west  at  night,  the  human 
stream  which  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world. 


On  hursday  evening  last,  some  gentlemen,  who 
supped  and  spent  some  agreeable  hours  at  The 
Devil  Tavern  near  Temple  Barr,  upon  calling  for 
the  bill  of  expenses  had  the  following  given  them 
by  the  landlord,  viz.: 


For  geese,  the  finest  ever  seen  £ 

By  Duke  or  Duchess,  King  or  Queen,         o. 

For  nice  green  peas,  as  plump  and  pretty. 

Better  ne'er  ate  in  London  City,  o. 

For  charming  gravy,  made  to  please. 

With  butter,  bread  &  Cheshire  cheese,      o. 

For  honest  porter,  brown  and  stout. 

That  cheers  the  heart,>&  cures  the  gout,    o. 

For  unadulterated  wine ; 

Genuine!    Noble!    Pure!    Divine  I  o. 

For  my  Nan's  punch  (and  Nan  knows  how 

To  make  good  punch,  you  '11  all  allow)        o.     7. 

For  juniper,  most  clear  and  fine. 

That  looks  and  almost  tastes,  like  wine,     o.     i. 

For  choice  tobacco,  undefiled 

Harmless  and  pleasant,  soft  and  mild        o.     o. 


6.    o. 


£1. 


CLIPPING  FROM  A  KEWSPAPER  PUBLISHED  IX  1767 

Meanwhile  the  importance  of  Temple  Bar  as  a  city 
gate  was  lessening;  "a  weak  spot  in  our  defenses,"  a 
wit  calls  it,  and  points  out  that  the  enemy  can  dash 


284      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

around  it  through  the  barber's  shop,  one  door  of  which 
op)ens  into  the  City,  and  the  other  into  the  "suburbs  "; 
but  down  to  the  last  it  continued  to  play  a  part  in 
City  functions.  In  1851  it  is  lit  with  twenty  thousand 
lamps  as  the  Queen  goes  to  a  state  ball  in  Guildhall. 
A  few  months  later,  it  is  draped  in  black  as  the  re- 
mains of  the  Iron  Duke  pause  for  a  moment  under  its 
arches,  on  the  way  to  their  final  resting-place  in  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral.  In  a  few  years  we  see  it  draped 
with  the  colors  of  England  and  Prussia,  when  the 
Princess  Royal,  as  the  bride  of  Frederick  William, 
gets  her  "Farewell"  and  "God  bless  you"  from  the 
City,  on  her  departure  for  Berlin.  Five  years  pass  and 
the  young  Prince  of  Wales  and  his  beautiful  bride, 
Alexandra,  are  received  with  wild  applause  by  the 
mob  as  their  carriage  halts  at  Temple  Bar;  and  once 
again  when,  in  February,  1872,  Queen  Victoria,  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales,  and  their  Court  go  to 
St.  Paul's  to  return  thanks  for  the  Prince's  happy 
recovery  from  a  dangerous  illness. 

With  this  event  the  history  of  Temple  Bar  in  its 
old  location  practically  ceases.  It  continued  a  few 
years  longer  a  "bone  in  the  throat  of  Fleet  Street"; 
but  at  last  its  condition  became  positively  dangerous, 
its  gates  were  removed  because  of  their  weight,  and 
its  arches  propped  up  with  timbers.  Finally,  in  1877, 
its  removal  was  decided  upon,  by  the  Corporation 
of  London,  and  Temple  Bar,  from  time  immemorial 
one  of  London's  most  notable  landmarks,  disappears 
and  the  Griffin  on  an  "island'*  rises  in  its  stead. 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  285 

"The  ancient  site  of  Temple  Bar  has  been  disfig- 
gured  by  Boehm  with  statues  of  the  Queen  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales  so  stupidly  modeled  that  they  look 
like  statues  out  of  Noah's  Ark.  It  is  bad  enough  that 
we  should  have  German  princes  foisted  upon  us,  but 
German  statues  are  worse." 

In  this  manner  George  Moore  refers  to  the  Me- 
morial commonly  called  the  GriJB&n,  which,  shortly 
after  the  destruction  of  the  old  gate,  was  erected  on 
the  exact  spot  where  Temple  Bar  formerly  stood. 

It  is  not  a  handsome  object;  indeed,  barring  the 
Albert  Memorial,  it  may  be  said  to  represent  Vic- 
torian taste  at  its  worst.  It  is  a  high,  rectangular 
pedestal,  running  lengthwise  with  the  street,  placed 
on  a  small  island  which  serves  as  a  refuge  for  pedes- 
trians crossing  the  busy  thoroughfare.  On  either  side 
are  niches  in  which  are  placed  the  lifesize  marble  fig- 
ures described  by  Moore.  But  this  is  not  all:  there  are^ 
bronze  tablets  let  into  the  masonry,  showing  in  basso- 
rilievo  incidents  in  the  history  of  old  Temple  Bar, 
with  portraits,  medallions,  and  other  things.  This 
base  pedestal,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  is  surmounted  by 
a  smaller  pedestal  on  which  is  placed  a  heraldic  dragon 
or  griffin,  —  a  large  monster  in  bronze,  —  which  is 
supposed  to  guard  the  gold  of  the  City. 

We  do  not  look  for  beauty  in  Fleet  Street,  and  we 
know  that  only -in  the  Victorian  sense  is  this  monu- 
ment a  work  of  art;  but  it  has  the  same  interest  for 
us  as  a  picture  by  Frith  —  it  is  a  human  document. 
Memories  of  the  past  more  real  than  the  actual  pres- 


286      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

ent  crowd  upon  us,  and  we  turn  under  an  archway 
into  the  Temple  Gardens,  glad  to  forget  the  artistic 
sins  of  Boehm  and  his  compeers. 

Ask  the  average  Londoner  what  has  become  of  old 
Temple  Bar,  and  he  will  look  at  you  in  blank  amaze- 
ment, and  then,  with  an  effort  of  memory,  say, 
"They've  put  it  up  somewhere  in  the  north."  And 
so  it  is. 

On  its  removal  the  stones  were  carefully  numbered, 
with  a  view  to  reerection,  and  there  was  some  discus- 
sion as  to  where  the  old  gate  should  be  located.  It  is 
agreed  now  that  it  should  have  been  placed  in  the 
Temple  Gardens;  but  for  almost  ten  years  the  stones, 
about  one  thousand  in  number,  were  stored  on  a  piece 
of  waste  ground  in  the  Farrington  Road.  Finally, 
they  were  purchased  by  Sir  Henry  Meux,  the  rich 
brewer,  whose  brewery,  if  out  of  sight,  still  indicates 
its  presence  by  the  strong  odor  of  malt,  at  the  corner 
of  Oxford  Street  and  Tottenham  Court  Road.  Sir 
Henry  Meux  was  the  ow^ner  of  a  magnificent  country 
seat,  Theobald's  Park,  near  Waltham  Cross,  about 
twelve  miles  north  of  London;  and  he  determined  to 
make  Temple  Bar  the  principal  entrance  gate  to  this 
historic  estate. 

So  to  Theobald's  Park,  anciently  Tibbals,  I  bent 
my  steps  one  morning.  Being  in  a  reminiscent  mood, 
I  had  intended  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Izaak 
Walton,  from  the  site  of  his  shop  in  Fleet  Street 
just  east  of  Temple  Bar,  and  having,  in  the  words  of 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  287 

the  gentle  angler,  "stretched  my  legs  up  Tottenham 
Hill,"  to  take  the  high  road  into  Hertfordshire;  but 
the  English  spring  having  opened  with  more  than  its 
customary  severity,  I  decided  to  go  by  rail.  It  was 
raining  gently  but  firmly  when  my  train  reached  its 
destination,  Waltham  Cross,  and  I  was  deprived  of 
the  pleasure  I  had  promised  myself  of  reaching  Temple 
Bar  on  foot.  An  antique  fly,  drawn  by  a  superan- 
nuated horse,  was  secured  at  the  railway  station,  and 
after  a  short  drive  I  was  set  down  before  old  Temple 
Bar,  the  gates  of  which  were  closed  as  securely  against 
me  as  ever  they  had  been  closed  against  an  unruly  mob 
in  its  old  location. 

Driving  along  a  flat  and  monotonous  country  road, 
one  comes  on  the  old  gate  almost  suddenly,  and  ex- 
periences a  feeling,  not  of  disappointment  but  of  sur- 
prise. The  gate  does  not  span  the  road,  but  is  set  back 
a  little  in  a  hedge  on  one  side  of  it,  and  seems  large 
for  its  setting.  One  is  prepared  for  a  dark,  grimy 
portal,  whereas  the  soot  and  smoke  of  London  have 
been  erased  from  it,  and,  instead,  one  sees  an  antique, 
creamy-white  structure  tinted  and  toned  with  the 
green  of  the  great  trees  which  overhang  it. 

Prowling  about  in  the  drenching  rain,  I  looked  in 
vain  for  some  sign  of  life.  I  shouted  to  King  James, 
who  looked  down  on  me  from  his  niche;  and  receiving 
no  reply,  addressed  his  consort,  inquiring  how  I  was 
to  secure  admittance. 

A  porter's  lodge  on  one  side,  almost  hidden  in  the 
trees,  supplied  an  answer  to  my  question,  and  on  my 


288      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

giving  a  lusty  pull  at  the  bell,  the  door  was  opened 
and  a  slatternly  woman  appeared  and  inquired  my 
business.  "To  look  over  Temple  Bar,"  I  replied. 
"Hutterly  himpossible,"  she  said;  and  I  saw  at  once 
that  tact  and  a  coin  were  required.  I  used  both.  "Go 
up  the  drive  to  the  great  'ouse  and  hask  for  the  clerk 
[pronounced  dark]  of  the  works,  Mr.  ' Arrison ;  'e  may 
let  ye  hover." 

I  did  as  I  was  told  and  had  little  difficulty  with  Mr. 
Harrison.  The  house  itself  was  undergoing  extensive 
repairs  and  alterations.  It  has  recently  passed,  under 
the  will  of  Lady  Meux,  to  its  present  owner,  together 
with  a  fortune  of  five  hundred  thousand  pounds  in 
money. 

Many  years  ago  Henry  Meux  married  the  beauti- 
ful and  charming  Valerie  Langton,  an  actress,  —  a 
Gaiety  girl,  in  fact,  —  but  they  had  had  no  children, 
and  when  he  died  in  1900,  the  title  became  extinct. 
Thereafter  Lady  Meux,  enormously  wealthy,  without 
relatives,  led  a  retired  life,  chiefly  interested  in  breed- 
ing horses.  A  chance  courtesy  paid  her  by  the  wife 
of  Sir  Hed  worth  Lamb  ton,  who  had  recently  married, 
together  with  the  fact  that  he  had  established  a  rep- 
utation for  ability  and  courage,  decided  her  in  her 
thought  to  make  him  her  heir. 

Sir  Hedworth,  a  younger  son  of  the  second  Earl  of 
Durham,  had  early  adopted  the  sea  as  his  profession. 
He  had  distinguished  himself  in  the  bombardment  of 
Alexandria,  and  had  done  something  wonderful  at 
Ladysmith.   He  was  a  hero,  no  longer  a  young  man. 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW  289 

without  means  —  who  better  fitted  to  succeed  to  her 
wealth  and  name?  In  1911  Lady  Meux  died,  and  this 
lovely  country  seat,  originally  a  hunting-lodge  of 
King  James,  subsequently  the  favorite  residence  of 
Charles  I,  and  with  a  long  list  of  royal  or  noble  owners, 
became  the  property  of  the  gallant  sailor.  All  that  he 
had  to  do  was  to  forget  that  the  name  of  Meux  sug- 
gested a  brewery  and  exchange  his  own  for  it,  and  the 
great  property  was  his.  It  reads  like  a  chapter  out  of  a 
romance.  Thus  it  was  that  the  house  was  being  thor- 
oughly overhauled  for  its  new  owner  at  the  time  of 
my  visit. 

But  I  am  wandering  from  Temple  Bar.  Armed 
with  a  letter  from  Mr.  Harrison,  I  returned  to  the 
gate.  First,  I  ascertained  that  the  span  of  the  centre 
arch,  the  arch  through  which  for  two  centuries  the 
traflSc  of  London  had  passed,  was  but  twenty-one 
feet  "in  the  clear,"  as  an  architect  would  say;  next, 
that  the  span  of  the  small  arches  on  either  side  was 
only  four  feet  six  inches.  No  wonder  that  there  was 
always  congestion  at  Temple  Bar. 

I  was  anxious  also  to  see  the  room  above,  the  room 
in  which  formerly  Messrs.  Child,  when  it  had  ad- 
joined their  banking-house,  had  stored  their  old 
ledgers  and  cash-books.  Keys  were  sought  and  found, 
and  I  was  admitted.  The  room  was  bare  except  for  a 
large  table  in  the  centre,  on  which  were  quill  pens  and 
an  inkstand  in  which  the  ink  had  dried  up  years  be- 
fore. One  other  thing  there  was,  a  visitor's  book, 
which,  like  a  new  diary,  had  been  started  off  bravely 


290      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

years  before,  but  in  which  no  signature  had  recently 
been  written.  I  glanced  over  it  and  noticed  a  few 
well-known  names  —  English  names,  not  American, 
such  as  one  usually  finds,  for  I  was  off  the  beaten  track 
of  the  tourist.  The  roof  was  leaking  here  and  there, 
and  little  pools  of  water  were  forming  on  the  floor.  It 
was  as  cold  as  a  tomb.  I  wished  that  a  tavern,  the 
Cock,  the  Devil,  or  any  other,  had  been  just  outside, 
as  in  the  old  days  when  Temple  Bar  stood  in  Fleet 
Street. 

The  slatternly  woman  clanked  her  keys;  she  too  was 
cold.  I  had  seen  all  there  was  to  see.  The  beauty  of 
Temple  Bar  is  in  its  exterior,  and,  most  of  all,  in  its 
wealth  of  literary  and  historic  associations.  I  could 
muse  elsewhere  with  less  danger  of  pneumonia,  so  I 
said  farewell  to  the  kings  in  their  niches,  who  in  this 
suburban  retreat  seemed  like  monarchs  retired  from 
business,  and  returned  to  my  cab. 

The  driver  was  asleep  in  the  rain.  I  think  the  horse 
was,  too.  I  roused  the  man  and  he  roused  the  beast, 
and  we  drove  almost  rapidly  back  to  the  station;  no, 
not  to  the  station,  but  to  a  public  house  close  by  it, 
where  hot  water  and  accompaniments  were  to  be  had. 

"When  is  the  next  train  up  to  London?"  I  asked 
an  old  man  at  the  station. 

*'In  ten  minutes,  but  you'll  find  it  powerful  slow." 

I  was  not  deceived;  it  took  me  over  an  hour  to 
reach  London. 

As  if  to  enable  me  to  bring  this  story  to  a  fitting 
close,  I  read  in  the  papers  only  a  few  days  ago:  "Vice- 


TEMPLE  BAR  THEN  AND  NOW 


291 


Admiral  Sir  John  Jellicoe  was  to-day  promoted  .to  the 
rank  of  Admiral,  and  Sir  Hedworth  Meux,  who  until 
now  has  been  commander-in-chief  at  Portsmouth,  was 
appointed  Admiral  of  the  Home  Fleet."  ^ 

Good  luck  be  with  him!  Accepting  the  burdens 
which  properly  go  with  rank  and  wealth,  he  is  at  this 
moment  cruising  somewhere  in  the  cold  North  Sea, 
in  command  of  perhaps  the  greatest  fleet  ever  as- 
sembled. Upon  the  owner  of  Temple  Bar,  at  this 
moment,  devolves  the  duty  of  keeping  watch  and 
ward  over  England. 

^  This  was  written  in  April,  1915.  Sir  Hedworth  Meux  is  not  now 
in  active  service. 


XI 

A  MACARONI  PARSON 

It  will  hardly  be  questioned  that  the  influence  of  the 
priesthood  is  waning.  Why  this  is  so,  it  is  not  within 
the  province  of  a  mere  book-collector  to  discuss;  but 
the  fact  will,  I  think,  be  admitted.  In  the  past,  how- 
ever, every  country  and  almost  every  generation  has 
produced  a  type  of  priest  which  seems  to  have  been 
the  special  product  of  its  time.  The  soothsayer  of  old 
Rome,  concealed,  perhaps,  in  a  hollow  wall,  whispered 
his  warning  through  the  marble  lips  of  a  conveniently 
placed  statue,  in  return  for  a  suitable  present  indi- 
rectly offered;  while  to-day  Billy  Sunday,  leaping 
and  yelling  like  an  Apache  Indian,  shrieks  his  admo- 
nitions at  us,  and  takes  up  a  collection  in  a  clothes- 
basket.  It  is  all  very  sad  and,  as  Oscar  Wilde  would 
have  said,  very  tedious. 

Priests,  prophets,  parsons,  or  preachers !  They  are 
all  human,  like  the  rest  of  us.  Too  many  of  them  are 
merely  insurance  agents  soliciting  us  to  take  out 
policies  of  insurance  against  fire  everlasting,  for  a 
fee  commensurate,  not  with  the  risk,  but  with  our 
means.  It  is  a  well-established  trade,  in  which  the 
representatives  of  the  old-line  companies,  who  have 
had  the  cream  of  the  business,  look  with  disapproval 
upon  new  methods,  as  well  they  may,  their  own  having 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  293 

worked  so  well  for  centuries.  The  premiums  collected 
have  been  enormous,  and  no  evidence  has  ever  been 
produced  that  the  insurer  took  any  risk  whatever. 

And  the  profession  has  been,  not  only  immensely 
lucrative,  but  highly  honorable.  In  times  past  priests 
have  ranked  with  kings:  sometimes  wearing  robes  of 
silk  studded  with  jewels;  on  fortune's  cap  the  top- 
most button,  exhibit  Wolsey;  sometimes  appearing 
in  sackcloth  relieved  by  ashes;  every  man  in  his 
humor.  But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  inveigh  against 
any  creed  or  sect;  only  I  confess  my  bewilderment  at 
the  range  of  human  interest  in  questions  of  doctrine, 
while  simple  Christianity  stands  neglected. 

The  subject  of  this  paper,  however,  is  not  creeds 
in  general  or  in  particular,  but  an  eighteenth-century 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England.  It  will  not,  I 
think,  be  doubted  by  those  who  have  given  the  sub- 
ject any  attention  that  religious  affairs  in  England 
in  the  eighteenth  century  were  at  a  very  low  ebb  in- 
deed. Carlyle,  as  was  his  habit,  called  that  century 
some  hard  names ;  but  some  of  us  are  glad  occasionally 
to  steal  away  from  our  cares  and  forget  our  present 
"efl&ciency"  in  that  century  of  leisure.  Perhaps  not 
for  always,  but  certainly  for  a  time,  it  is  a  relief  to 

.  .  .  live  in  that  past  Georgian  day 
When  men  were  less  inclined  to  say 
That  "Time  is  Gold,"  and  overlay 
With  toil,  their  pleasure. 

And  to  quote  Austin  Dobson  again,  with  a  slight 
variation :  — 


294      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Seventeen  hundred  and  twenty -nine:  — 
That  is  the  date  of  this  tale  of  mine. 

First  great  Greorge  was  buried  and  gone; 
George  the  Second  was  plodding  on. 

Whitfield  preached  to  the  colliers  grim; 
Bishops  in  lawn  sleeves  preached  at  him; 

Walpole  talked  of  "a  man  and  his  price"; 
Nobody's  virtue  was  over-nice:  — 

certainly  not  that  of  the  clergyman  of  whom  I  am 
about  to  speak. 

And  now,  without  further  delay,  I  introduce  Wil- 
liam Dodd.  Doctor  Dodd,  he  came  to  be  called;  sub- 
sequently, the  "unfortunate  Doctor  Dodd,"  which  he 
certainly  considered  himself  to  be,  and  with  good 
reason,  as  he  was  finally  hanged. 

William  Dodd  was  born  in  Lincolnshire,  in  1729, 
and  was  himself  the  son  of  a  clergyman.  He  early 
became  a  good  student,  and  entering  Clare  Hall,  Cam- 
bridge, at  sixteen,  attracted  some  attention  by  his  close 
application  to  his  studies.  But  books  alone  did  not 
occupy  his  time:  he  attained  some  reputation  as  a 
dancer  and  was  noted  for  being  very  fond  of  dress. 
He  must  have  had  real  ability,  however,  for  he  was 
graduated  with  honors,  and  his  name  appears  on  the 
list  of  wranglers.  Immediately  after  receiving  his 
Arts  degree,  he  set  out  to  make  a  career  for  himself 
in  London. 

Young  Dodd  was  quick  and  industrious:  he  had 
good  manners  and  address,  made  friends  quickly,  and 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  295 

was  possessed  of  what,  in  those  days,  was  called  "a 
lively  imagination,"  which  seems  to  have  meant  a 
fondness  for  dissipation;  with  friends  to  help  him,  he 
soon  knew  his  way  about  the  metropolis.  Its  many 
pitfalls  he  discovered  by  falling  into  them,  and  the 
pitfalls  for  a  gay  yomig  blade  in  London  in  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  were  many  and  sundry. 

But  whatever  his  other  failings,  of  idleness  Dodd 
could  not  be  accused.  He  did  not  forget  that  he  had 
come  to  London  to  make  a  career  for  himself.  He 
had  already  published  verse;  he  now  began  a  comedy, 
and  the  death  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  afforded  him  a 
subject  for  an  elegy.  From  this  time  on  he  was  pre- 
pared to  write  an  ode  or  an  elegy  at  the  drop  of  a  hat. 
The  question,  should  he  become  author  or  minister, 
perplexed  him  for  some  time.  For  success  in  either 
direction  perseverance  and  a  patron  were  necessary. 
Perseverance  he  had,  but  a  patron  was  lacking. 

While  pondering  these  matters,  Dodd  seemed  to 
have  nipped  his  career  in  the  bud  by  a  most  improvi- 
dent marriage.  His  wife  was  a  Mary  Perkins,  which 
means  little  to  us.  She  may  have  been  a  servant,  but 
more  likely  she  was  the  discarded  mistress  of  a  noble- 
man who  was  anxious  to  see  her  provided  with  a  hus- 
band. In  any  event,  she  was  a  handsome  woman, 
and  his  marriage  was  not  his  greatest  misfortune. 

Shortly  after  the  wedding,  we  hear  of  them  living 
in  a  small  establishment  in  W  ardour  Street,  not  then, 
as  now,  given  over  to  second-hand  furniture  shops, 
but  rather  a  good  quarter  frequented  by  literary  men 


296      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

and  artists.  Who  supplied  the  money  for  this  venture 
we  do  not  know ;  it  was  probably  borrowed  from  some- 
one, and  we  may  suspect  that  Dodd  already  was 
headed  the  wrong  way  —  or  that,  at  least,  his  father 
thought  so  ;  for  we  hear  of  his  coming  to  London  to 
persuade  his  son  to  give  up  his  life  there  and  return 
to  Cambridge  to  continue  his  studies. 

Shortly  after  this  time  he  published  two  small  vol- 
umes of  quotations  which  he  called  "Beauties  of 
Shakespeare."  He  was  the  first  to  make  the  discovery 
that  a  book  of  quotations  "digested  under  proper 
heads"  would  have  a  ready  sale.  Shakespeare  in  the 
dead  centre  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  not  the 
colossal  figure  that  he  is  seen  to  be  as  we  celebrate 
the  tercentenary  of  his  death.  I  suspect  that  my 
friend  Felix  Schelling,  the  great  Elizabethan  scholar, 
feels  that  anyone  who  would  make  a  book  of  quota- 
tions from  Shakespeare  deserves  Dodd's  end,  namely, 
hanging;  indeed,  I  have  heard  him  suggest  as  much; 
but  we  cannot  all  be  Schellings.  The  book  was  well 
received  and  has  been  reprinted  right  down  to  our 
own  time.  In  the  introduction  he  refers  to  his  at- 
tempt to  present  a  collection  of  the  finest  passages  of 
the  poet,  "who  was  ever,"  he  says,  "of  all  modern 
authors,  my  first  and  greatest  favorite";  adding  that 
"it  would  have  been  no  hard  task  to  have  multiplied 
notes  and  parallel  passages  from  Greek,  Latin  and 
English  writers,  and  thus  to  have  made  no  small  dis- 
play of  what  is  commonly  called  learning";  but  that 
he  had  no  desire  to  perplex  the  reader.  There  is  much 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  297 

good  sense  in  the  introduction,  which  we  must  also 
think  of  as  coming  from  a  young  man  httle  more  than 
a  year  out  of  college. 

As  it  was  his  first,  so  he  thought  it  would  be  his  last, 
serious  venture  into  literature,  for  in  his  preface  he 
says:  "Better  and  more  important  things  henceforth 
demand  my  attention,  and  I  here,  with  no  small 
pleasure,  take  leave  of  Shakespeare  and  the  critics: 
as  this  work  was  begun  and  finish'd  before  I  enter'd 
upon  the  sacred  function  in  which  I  am  now  happily 
employ 'd." 

Dodd  had  already  been  ordained  deacon  and  settled 
down  as  a  curate  in  West  Ham  in  Essex,  where  he  did 
not  spare  himself  in  the  dull  round  of  parochial 
drudgery.  So  passed  two  years  which,  looking  back 
on  them  from  within  the  portals  of  Newgate  Prison, 
he  declared  to  have  been  the  happiest  of  his  life. 
But  he  soon  tired  of  the  country,  his  yearning  for  city 
life  was  not  to  be  resisted,  and  securing  a  lectureship 
at  St.  Olave's,  Hart  Street,  he  returned  to  London 
and  relapsed  into  literature. 

A  loose  novel,  "The  Sisters,"  is  credited  to  him. 
WTiether  he  wrote  it  or  not  is  a  question,  but  he  may 
well  have  done  so,  for  some  of  its  pages  seem  to  have 
inspired  his  sermons.  Under  cover  of  being  a  warn- 
ing to  the  youth  of  both  sexes,  he  deals  with  London 
life  in  a  manner  which  would  have  put  the  author  of 
"Peregrine  Pickle"  to  shame;  but  as  nobody's  virtue 
was  over-nice,  nobody  seemed  to  think  it  particularly 
strange  that  a  clergyman  should  have  written  such  a 


298      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

book.    In  many  respects  he  reminds  us  of  his  more 
gifted  rival,  Laurence  Sterne. 

Dodd's  great  chance  came  in  1758,  when  a  certain 
Mr.  Hingley  and  some  of  his  friends  got  together  three 
thousand  pounds  and  estabUshed  an  asylum  for 
Magdalens,  presumably  penitent.  The  scheme  was 
got  under  way  after  the  usual  difficulties;  and  as,  in 
the  City,  the  best  way  to  arouse  public  interest  is  by 
a  dinner,  so  in  the  West  End  a  sermon  may  be  made  to 
serve  the  same  purpose.  Sterne  had  talked  a  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds  out  of  the  pockets  of  his  hearers  for 
the  recently  established  Foundling  Hospital;  Dodd, 
when  selected  to  preach  the  inaugural  sermon  at  Mag- 
dalen House,  got  ten  times  as  much.  Who  had  the 
greater  talent?  Dodd  was  content  that  the  question 
should  be  put.  The  charity  became  immensely  popu- 
lar. *'Her  Majesty"  subscribed  three  hundred  pounds, 
and  the  cream  of  England's  nobility,  feeling  a  personal 
interest  in  such  an  institution,  and  perhaps  a  personal 
responsibility  for  the  urgent  need  of  it,  made  large  con- 
tributions. The  success  of  the  venture  was  assured. 
'  Dodd  was  made  Chaplain.  At  first  this  was  an  hon- 
orary position,  but  subsequently  a  small  stipend  was 
attached  to  it.  The  post  was  much  to  his  liking,  a.nd 
it  became  as  fashionable  to  go  to  hear  Dodd  and  see 
the  penitent  magdalens  on  Sunday,  as  to  go  to  Rane- 
lagh  and  Vauxhall  with,  and  to  see,  impenitent  mag- 
dalens during  the  week.  Services  at  Magdalen  House 
were  always  crowded:  royalty  attended;  everybody 
went. 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  299 

Sensational  and  melodramatic,  Dodd  drew  vivid 
pictures  of  the  life  from  which  the  women  and  young 
girls  had  been  rescued:  the  penitents  on  exhibition 
and  the  impenitents  in  the  congregation,  alike,  were 
moved  to  tears.  Frequently  a  woman  swooned,  as 
was  the  fashion  in  those  days,  and  her  stays  had  to  be 
cut;  or  someone  went  into  hysterics  and  had  to  be 
carried  screaming  from  the  room.  Dodd  must  have 
felt  that  he  had  made  no  mistake  in  his  calling. 
Horace  Walpole  says  that  he  preached  very  eloquently 
in  the  French  style;  but  it  can  hardly  have  been  in  the 
style  of  Bossuet,  I  should  say.  The  general  wanton- 
ness of  his  subject  he  covered  by  a  veneer  of  decency; 
but  we  can  guess  what  his  sermons  were  like,  without 
reading  them,  from  our  knowledge  of  the  man  and  the 
texts  he  chose.  "These  things  I  command  you,  that 
ye  love  one  another,"  packed  the  house;  but  his 
greatest  effort  was  inspired  by  the  text,  "Whosoever 
looketh  on  a  woman."  It  does  not  require  much  im- 
agination to  see  what  he  would  make  out  of  that ! 

But  for  all  his  immense  popularity  Dodd  was  get- 
ting very  little  money.  His  small  living  in  the  coun- 
try and  his  hundred  guineas  or  so  from  the  Magdalen 
did  not  suffice  for  his  needs.  He  ran  into  debt,  but  he 
had  confidence  in  himself  and  his  ambition  was 
boundless;  he  even  thought  of  a  bishopric.  Why  not.'^ 
It  was  no  new  way  to  pay  old  debts.  Influence  in  high 
places  was  his;  but  first  he  must  secure  a  doctor's  de- 
gree. This  was  not  difficult.  Cambridge,  if  not  ex- 
actly proud  of  him,  could  not  deny  him,  and  Dodd  got 


300      AISIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

his  degree.  The  King  was  appealed  to,  and  he  was 
appointed  a  Royal  Chaplain.  It  was  a  stepping-stone 
to  something  better,  and  Dodd,  always  industrious, 
now  worked  harder  than  ever.  He  wrote  and  pub- 
lished incessantly:  translations,  sermons,  addresses, 
poems,  odes,  and  elegies  on  anybody  and  everything: 
more  than  fifty  titles  are  credited  to  him  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum  catalogue. 

And  above  all  things,  Dodd  was  in  demand  at  a 
"city  dinner."  His  blessings  —  he  was  always  called 
upon  to  say  grace  —  were  carefully  regulated  accord- 
ing to  the  scale  of  the  function.  A  brief  "Bless,  O 
Lord,  we  pray  thee"  sufficed  for  a  simple  dinner;  but 
when  the  table  was  weighted  down,  as  it  usually  was, 
with  solid  silver,  and  the  glasses  suggested  the  variety 
and  number  of  wines  which  were  to  follow  one  an- 
other in  orderly  procession  until  most  of  the  company 
got  drunk  and  were  carried  home  and  put  to  bed, 
then  Dodd  rose  to  the  occasion,  and  addressed  a 
sonorous  appeal  which  began,  "Bountiful  Jehovah, 
who  has  caused  to  groan  this  table  with  the  abundant 
evidences  of  thy  goodness." 

The  old-line  clergy  looked  askance  at  all  these  do- 
ings. Bishops,  secure  in  their  enjoyment  of  princely 
incomes,  and  priests  of  lesser  degree  with  incomes 
scarcely  less  princely,  regarded  Dodd  with  suspicion. 
Why  did  he  not  get  a  good  living  somewhere,  from 
someone;  hire  a  poor  wretch  to  mumble  a  few  prayers 
to  half-empty  benches  on  a  Sunday  while  he  col- 
lected the  tithes.'*   Why  this  zeal.'*  'When  a  substantial 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  301 

banker  hears  of  an  upstart  guaranteeing  ten  per  cent 
interest,  he  awaits  the  inevitable  crash,  certain  that, 
the  longer  it  is  postponed,  the  greater  the  crash  will 
be.  In  the  same  light  the  well-beneficed  clergyman 
regarded  Dodd. 

Dodd  himself  longed  for  tithes;  but  as  they  were 
delayed  in  coming,  he,  in  the  meantime,  decided  to 
turn  his  reputation  for  scholarship  to  account,  and 
accordingly  let  it  be  known  that  he  would  board  and 
suitably  instruct  a  limited  number  of  young  men;  in 
other  words,  he  fell  back  upon  the  time-honored  cus- 
tom of  taking  pupils.  He  secured  a  country  house  at 
Ealing  and  soon  had  among  his  charges  one  Philip 
Stanhope,  a  lad  of  eleven  years,  heir  of  the  great  Earl 
of  Chesterfield,  who  was  so  interested  in  the  worldly 
success  of  his  illegitimate  son,  to  whom  his  famous 
letters  were  addressed,  that  he  apparently  gave  him- 
self little  concern  as  to  the  character  of  instruction 
that  his  lawful  son  received. 

Dodd's  pupils  must  have  brought  a  substantial  in- 
crease of  his  small  income,  which  was  also  suddenly 
augmented  in  another  way.  About  the  time  he  began 
to  take  pupils,  a  lady  to  whom  his  wife  had  been  a 
sort  of  companion  died  and  left  her,  quite  unex- 
pectedly, fifteen  hundred  pounds.  Nor  did  her  good 
fortune  end  there.  As  she  was  attending  an  auction 
one  day,  a  cabinet  was  put  up  for  sale,  and  Mrs.  Dodd 
bid  upon  it,  until,  observing  a  lady  who  seemed  anx- 
ious to  obtain  it,  she  stopped  bidding,  and  it  became 
the  property  of  the  lady,  who  in  return  gave  her  a  lot- 


302      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

tery  ticket,  which  drew  a  prize  of  a  thousand  pounds 
for  Mrs.  Dodd. 

With  these  windfalls  at  his  disposal,  Dodd  em- 
barked upon  a  speculation  quite  in  keeping  with  his 
tastes  and  abilities.  He  secured  a  plot  of  ground  not 
far  from  the  royal  palace,  and  built  upon  it  a  chapel  of 
ease  which  he  called  Charlotte  Chapel,  in  honor  of  the 
Queen.  Four  pews  were  set  aside  for  the  royal  house- 
hold, and  he  soon  had  a  large  and  fashionable  con- 
gregation. His  sermons  were  in  the  same  florid  vein 
which  had  brought  him  popularity,  and  from  this 
venture  he  was  soon  in  receipt  of  at  least  six  hundred 
pounds  a  year.  With  his  increased  income  his  style 
of  living  became  riotous.  He  dined  at  expensive 
taverns,  set  up  a  coach,  and  kept  a  mistress,  and  even 
tried  to  force  himself  into  the  great  literary  club  which 
numbered  among  its  members  some  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished men  of  the  day;  but  this  was  not  permitted. 

For  years  Dodd  led,  not  a  double,  but  a  triple  life. 
He  went  through  the  motions  of  teaching  his  pupils. 
He  preached,  in  his  own  chapels  and  elsewhere,  ser- 
mons on  popular  subjects,  and  at  the  same  time  man- 
aged to  live  the  life  of  a  fashionable  man  about  town. 
No  one  respected  him,  but  he  had  a  large  following 
and  he  contrived  every  day  to  get  deeper  into  debt. 

It  is  a  constant  source  of  bewilderment  to  those  of 
us  who  are  obliged  to  pay  our  bills  with  decent  regu- 
larity, how,  in  England,  it  seems  to  have  been  so  easy 
to  live  on  year  after  year,  paying  apparently  nothing 
to  anyone,  and  resenting  the  appearance  of  a  bill- 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  303 

collector  as  an  impertinence.  When  Goldsmith  died, 
he  owed  a  sum  which  caused  Dr.  Johnson  to  exclaim, 
"Was  ever  poet  so  trusted  before?"  and  Goldsmith's 
debts  were  trifling  in  comparison  with  Dodd's.  But, 
at  the  moment  when  matters  were  becoming  really 
serious,  a  fashionable  living  —  St.  George's  —  fell 
vacant,  and  Dodd  felt  that  if  he  could  but  secure  it 
his  troubles  would  be  over. 

The  parish  church  of  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square, 
was  one  of  the  best  known  in  London.  It  was  in  the 
centre  of  fashion,  and  then,  as  now,  enjoyed  almost 
a  monopoly  of  smart  weddings.  Its  rector  had  just 
been  made  a  bishop.  Dodd  looked  upon  it  with  long- 
ing eyes.  What  a  plum !  It  seemed  beyond  his  reach, 
but  nothing  venture,  nothing  have.  On  investiga- 
tion Dodd  discovered  that  the  living  was  worth  fifteen 
hundred  pounds  a  year  and  that  it  was  in  the  gift  of 
the  Lord  Chancellor.  The  old  adage,  "  Give  thy  pres- 
ent to  the  clerk,  not  to  the  judge,"  must  have  come 
into  his  mind;  for,  not  long  after,  the  wife  of  the 
Chancellor  received  an  anonymous  letter  offering 
three  thousand  pounds  down  and  an  annuity  of  five 
hundred  a  year  if  she  would  successfully  use  her  in- 
fluence with  her  husband  to  secure  the  living  for  a 
clergyman  of  distinction  who  should  be  named  later. 
The  lady  very  properly  handed  the  letter  to  her  hus- 
band, who  at  once  set  inquiries  on  foot.  The  matter 
was  soon  traced  to  Dodd,  who  promptly  put  the 
blame  on  his  wife,  saying  that  he  had  not  been  aware 
of  the  officious  zeal  of  his  consort. 


304      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

The  scandal  became  public,  and  Dodd  thought  it 
best  to  go  abroad.  Ilis  name  was  removed  from  the 
list  of  the  King's  chaplains.  No  care  was  taken  to  dis- 
guise references  to  him  in  the  public  prints.  Libel 
laws  in  England  seem  to  have  been  circumvented  by 
the  use  of  asterisks  for  letters :  thus,  Laurence  Sterne 
would  be  referred  to  as  "the  Rev.  L.  S*****,"  coupled 
with  some  damaging  statement;  but  in  Dodd's  case 
precaution  of  this  sort  was  thought  unnecessary.  He 
was  bitterly  attacked  and  mercilessly  ridiculed.  Even 
Goldsmith  takes  a  fling  at  him  in  "  Retaliation,"  which 
appeared  about  this  time.  It  remained,  however,  for 
Foote,  the  comedian,  to  hold  him  up  to  public  scorn 
in  one  of  his  Haymarket  farces,  in  which  the  parson 
and  his  wife  were  introduced  as  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Simony. 
The  satire  was  very  coarse;  but  stomachs  w^ere  strong 
in  those  good  old  days,  and  the  w^hole  to\Mi  roared 
at  the  humor  of  the  thing,  which  was  admitted  to 
be  a  great  success. 

On  Dodd's  return  to  London  his  fortunes  were  at 
a  very  low  ebb  indeed.  A  contemporary  account  says 
that,  although  almost  overwhelmed  with  debt,  his 
extravagance  continued  undiminished  until,  at  last, 
"he  descended  so  low  as  to  become  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper."  My  editorial  friends  will  note  well  the 
depth  of  his  infamy. 

After  a  time  the  scandal  blew  over,  as  scandal  will 
when  the  public  appetite  has  been  appeased,  and 
Dodd  began  to  preach  again:  a  sensational  preacher 
will  always  have  followers.    Someone  presented  him 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  305 

to  a  small  living  in  Buckinghamshire,  from  which  he 
had  a  small  addition  to  his  income;  but  otherwise  he 
was  almost  neglected. 

At  last  he  was  obliged  to  sell  his  interest  in  his 
chapel  venture,  which  he  "unloaded,"  as  we  should 
say  to-day,  on  a  fellow  divine  by  misstating  its  value 
as  a  going  concern,  so  that  the  purchaser  was  ruined 
by  his  bargain.  But  he  continued  to  preach  with 
great  pathos  and  effect,  when  suddenly  the  announce- 
ment was  made  that  the  great  preacher.  Dr.  Dodd, 
the  Macaroni  Parson,  had  been  arrested  on  a  charge 
of  forgery;  that  he  was  already  in  the  Compter;  that 
he  had  admitted  his  guilt,  and  that  he  would  doubtless 
be  hanged. 

The  details  of  the  affair  were  soon  public  property. 
It  appears  that,  at  last  overwhelmed  with  debt,  Dodd 
had  forged  the  name  of  his  former  pupil,  now  the 
Earl  of  Chesterfield,  to  a  bond  for  forty -two  hundred 
pounds.  The  bond  had  been  negotiated  and  the 
money  paid  when  the  fraud  was  discovered.  A  war- 
rant for  his  arrest  was  at  once  made  out,  and  Dodd 
was  taken  before  Justice  Hawkins  (Johnson's  first 
biographer),  who  sat  as  a  committing  magistrate,  and 
held  him  for  formal  trial  at  the  Old  Bailey.  Mean- 
while all  but  four  hundred  pounds  of  the  money  had 
been  returned;  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  this  small 
sum  could  be  raised  and  the  affair  dropped.  This  cer- 
tainly was  Dodd's  hope;  but  the  law  had  been  set  in 
motion,  and  justice,  rather  than  mercy,  was  allowed  to 
take  its  course.  The  crime  had  been  committed  early 


806      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

in  February.  At  the  trial  a  few  weeks  later,  the  Earl 
of  Chesterfield,  disregarding  Dodd's  plea,  appeared 
against  him,  and  he  was  sentenced  to  death;  but  some 
legal  point  had  been  raised  in  his  favor,  and  it  was 
several  months  before  the  question  was  finally  de- 
cided adversely  to  him. 

Dodd  was  now  in  Newgate  Prison.  There  he  was 
indulged  in  every  way,  according  to  the  good  old  cus- 
tom of  the  time.  He  was  plentifully  supplied  with 
money,  and  could  secure  whatever  money  would  buy. 
Friends  were  admitted  to  see  him  at  all  hours,  and  he 
occupied  what  leisure  he  had  with  correspondence, 
and  wrote  a  long  poem,  "Thoughts  in  Prison,"  in 
five  parts.  He  also  projected  a  play  and  several  other 
literary  ventures. 

Meanwhile  a  mighty  effort  was  set  on  foot  to  secure 
a  pardon.  Dr.  Johnson  was  appealed  to,  and  while  he 
entertained  no  doubts  as  to  the  wisdom  of  capital 
punishment  for  fraud,  forgery,  or  theft,  the  thought 
of  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England  being  publicly 
haled  through  the  streets  of  London  to  Tyburn  and 
being  there  hanged  seemed  horrible  to  him,  and  he 
promised  to  do  his  best.  He  was  as  good  as  his  word. 
With  his  ready  pen  he  wrote  a  number  of  letters  and 
petitions  which  were  conveyed  to  Dodd,  and  which, 
subsequently  copied  by  him,  were  presented  to  the 
King,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  to  any  one,  in  fact,  who 
might  have  influence  and  be  ready  to  use  it.  He  even 
went  so  far  as  to  write  a  letter  which,  when  transcribed 
by  Mrs.  Dodd,  was  presented  to  the  Queen.    One 


0*   iL^    (uTvjt    X*- 


^IvO^     Wvftv*fcM^%«t     «nU»V(£^Uj    'tUjV/i.V/^ 
J^AjtW.    '^b*'     ^^^^'^t!^ 


FACSnilLE  OF  THE  FIRST  PAGE  OF  DR.  JOHNSONS  rP:TITIOX  TO  THE  KING 
ON  BEHALF  OF  DR.  DODD 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  307 

petition,  drawn  by  Johnson,  was  signed  by  twenty- 
three  thousand  people;  but  the  King  —  under  the 
influence  of  Lord  Mansfield,  it  is  said  —  declined  to 
interest  himself. 

And  this  brings  me  to  a  point  where  I  must  ex- 
plain my  peculiar  interest  in  this  thoroughgoing 
scoundrel.  I  happen  to  own  a  volume  of  manuscript 
letters  written  by  Dodd,  from  Newgate  Prison,  to  a 
man  named  Edmund  Allen;  and  as  not  every  reader 
of  Boswell  can  be  expected  to  remember  who  Ed- 
mund Allen  was,  I  may  say  that  he  was  Dr.  John- 
son's neighbor  and  landlord  in  Bolt  Court,  a  printer 
by  trade  and  an  intimate  friend  of  the  Doctor.  It 
was  Allen  who  gave  the  dinner  to  Johnson  and  Bos- 
well which  caused  the  old  man  to  remark,  "Sir,  we 
could  not  have  had  a  better  dinner  had  there  been  a 
Synod  of  Cooks."  The  Dodd  letters  to  Allen,  how- 
ever, are  only  a  part  of  the  contents  of  the  volume. 
It  contains  also  a  great  number  of  Johnson's  letters  to 
Dodd,  and  the  original  drafts  of  the  petitions  which 
he  drew  up  in  his  efforts  to  secure  mitigation  of  Dodd's 
punishment.  The  whole  collection  came  into  my 
possession  many  years  ago,  and  has  afforded  me  a 
subject  of  investigation  on  many  a  winter's  evening 
when  I  might  otherwise  have  occupied  myself  with  soli- 
taire, did  I  happen  to  know  one  card  from  another. 

Allen  appears  to  have  been  an  acquaintance  of 
Dodd's,  and,  I  judge  from  the  letters  before  me,  called 
on  Johnson  with  a  letter  from  a  certain  Lady  Harring- 
ton, who  for  some  reason  which  does  not  appear,  was 


308      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

grctatly  interested  in  Dodd's  fate.  Boswell  records  that 
Johnson  was  much  agitated  at  the  interview,  walking 
up  and  down  his  chamber  saying,  "I  will  do  what  I 
can."  Dodd  was  personally  unknown  to  Johnson  and 
had  only  once  been  in  his  presence;  and  while  an 
elaborate  correspondence  was  being  carried  on  be- 
tween them,  Johnson  declined  to  go  to  see  the  pris- 
oner, and  for  some  reason  wished  that  his  name  should 
not  be  drawn  into  the  affair;  but  he  did  not  relax  his 
efforts.  Allen  was  the  go-between  in  all  that  passed 
between  the  two  men.  In  the  volume  before  me,  in 
all  of  Dodd's  letters  to  Allen,  Johnson's  name  has 
been  carefully  blotted  out,  and  Johnson's  letters  in- 
tended for  Dodd  are  not  addressed  to  him,  but  bear 
the  inscription,  "This  may  be  communicated  to  Dr. 
Dodd."  Dodd's  letters  to  Johnson  were  delivered  to 
him  by  Allen  and  w^ere  probably  destroyed,  Allen 
having  first  made  the  copies  which  are  now  in  my 
possession.  Most  of  Dodd's  letters  to  Allen  appear  to 
have  been  preserved,  and  Johnson's  letters  to  Dodd, 
together  with  the  drafts  of  his  petitions,  were  care- 
fully preserved  by  Allen,  Dodd  being  supplied  with 
unsigned  copies.  Allen  in  this  way  carried  out  John- 
son's instructions  to  "tell  nobody." 

Dodd's  letters  seem  for  the  most  part  to  have  been 
written  at  night.  The  correspondence  began  early  in 
May,  and  his  last  letter  was  dated  June  26,  a  few 
hours  before  he  died.  None  of  Dodd's  letters  seem 
to  have  been  published,  and  Johnson's,  although  of 
supreme  interest,  do  not  appear  to  have  been  known 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  309 

in  their  entirety  either  to  Hawkins,  Boswell,  or  Bos- 
well's  greatest  editor,  Birkbeck  Hill.  The  petitions, 
so  far  as  they  have  been  published,  seem  to  have  been 
printed  from  imperfect  copies  of  the  original  drafts. 
Boswell  relates  that  Johnson  had  told  him  he  had 
written  a  petition  from  the  City  of  London,  but  they 
mended  it.  In  the  original  draft  there  are  a  few  re- 
pairs, but  they  are  in  Dr.  Johnson's  own  hand.  The 
petition  to  the  King  evidently  did  not  require  mend- 
ing, as  the  published  copies  are  almost  identical  with 
the  original. 

In  the  petition  which  he  wrote  for  Mrs.  Dodd  to 
copy  and  present  to  the  Queen,  Johnson,  not  know- 
ing all  the  facts,  left  blank  spaces  in  the  original  draft 
for  Mrs.  Dodd  to  fill  when  making  her  copy;  thus 
the  original  draft  reads :  — 

To  THE  Queen's  Most  Excellent  Majesty 

Madam:  — 

It  is  most  humbly  represented  by Dodd,  the  Wife 

of  Dr.  William  Dodd,  now  lying  in  prison  under  Sentence 
of  death. 

That  she  has  been  the  Wife  of  this  unhappy  Man  for 
more  than  —  years,  and  has  lived  with  him  in  the  greatest 
happiness  of  conjugal  union,  and  the  highest  state  of  con- 
jugal confidence. 

That  she  has  been  therefore  for  —  years  a  constant 
Witness  of  his  unwearied  endeavors  for  publick  good  and 
his  laborious  attendance  on  charitable  institutions.  Many 
are  the  Families  whom  his  care  has  relieved  from  want; 
many  are  the  hearts  which  he  has  freed  from  pain,  and  the 
Faces  which  he  has  cleared  from  sorrow. 


310      A^IENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

That  therefore  she  most  humbly  throws  herself  at  the 
feet  of  the  Queen,  earnestly  entreating  that  the  petition  of 
a  distresseti  Wife  asking  mercy  for  a  husband  may  be  con- 
sidered as  naturally  exciting  the  compassion  of  her  Ma- 
jesty, and  that  when  her  Wisdom  has  compared  the  of- 
fender's good  actions  with  his  crime,  she  will  be  graciously 
pleased  to  represent  his  case  in  such  tenns  to  our  most 
gracious  Sovereign,  as  may  dispose  him  to  mitigate  tlie 
rigours  of  the  law. 

The  case  of  the  unfortunate  Dr.  Dodd  was  by  now 
the  talk  of  the  town.  If  agitation  and  discussion  and 
letters  and  positions  could  have  saved  him,  saved  he 
would  have  been,  for  all  London  was  in  an  uproar, 
and  efforts  of  every  kind  on  his  behalf  w'ere  set  in 
motion.  He  can  hardly  have  been  blamed  for  feeling 
sure  that  they  would  never  hang  him.  Johnson  was 
not  so  certain,  and  warned  him  against  over-confi- 
dence. 

Rather  curiously,  merchants,  "city  people,"  who, 
one  might  suppose,  would  be  inclined  to  regard  the 
crime  of  forgery  with  severity,  were  disposed  to  think 
that  Dodd's  sufferings  in  Newgate  were  sufficient 
punishment  for  any  crime  he  had  committed.  After 
all,  it  was  said,  the  money,  most  of  it,  had  been  re- 
turned; so  they  signed  a  monster  petition;  tw^enty- 
three  thousand  names  were  secured  without  difl5- 
culty.  But  the  West  End  was  rather  indifferent,  and 
Dr.  Johnson  finally  came  to  the  conclusion  that, 
while  no  effort  should  be  relaxed  (in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Allen  he  says,  "Nothing  can  do  harm,  let  everything 
be  tried"),  it  was  time  for  Dodd  to  prepare  himself 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  Sll 

for  his  fate.  He  thereupon  wrote  the  following  letter, 
which  we  may  suppose  Allen  either  transcribed  or 
read  to  the  unfortunate  prisoner:  — 

Sir:  — 

You  know  that  my  attention  to  Dr.  Dodd  has  incited 
me  to  enquire  what  is  the  real  purpose  of  Government;  the 
dreadful  answer  I  have  put  into  your  hands. 

Nothing  now  remains  but  that  he  whose  profession  it 
has  been  to  teach  others  to  dye,  learn  how  to  dye  him- 
self. 

It  will  be  wise  to  deny  admission  from  this  time  to  all 
who  do  not  come  to  assist  his  preparation,  to  addict  him- 
seK  wholly  to  prayer  and  meditation,  and  consider  himself 
as  no  longer  connected  with  the  world.  He  has  now  noth- 
ing to  do  for  the  short  time  that  remains,  but  to  reconcile 
himseK  to  God.  To  this  end  it  will  be  proper  to  abstain 
totally  from  all  strong  liquors,  and  from  all  other  sensual 
indulgences,  that  his  thoughts  may  be  as  clear  and  calm 
as  his  condition  can  allow. 

If  his  Remissions  of  anguish,  and  intervals  of  Devotion 
leave  him  any  time,  he  may  perhaps  spend  it  profitably 
in  writing  the  history  of  his  own  depravation,  and  marking 
the  gradual  declination  from  innocence  and  quiet  to  that 
state  in  which  the  law  has  found  him.  Of  his  advice  to  the 
Clergy,  or  admonitions  to  Fathers  of  families,  there  is  no 
need;  he  will  leave  behind  him  those  who  can  write  them. 
But  the  history  of  his  own  mind,  if  not  written  by  himself, 
cannot  be  written,  and  the  instruction  that  might  be  de- 
rived from  it  must  be  lost.  This  therefore  he  must  leave  if 
he  leaves  anything;  but  whether  he  can  find  leisure,  or 
obtain  tranquillity  sufficient  for  this,  I  cannot  judge.  Let 
him  however  shut  his  doors  against  all  hope,  all  trifles  and 
all  sensuality.  Let  him  endeavor  to  calm  his  thoughts  by 
abstinence,  and  look  out  for  a  proper  director  in  his  peni- 
tence, and  May  God,  who  would  that  all  men  shall  be 


Sl«      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

saved,  help  him  with  his  Holy  Spirit,  and  have  mercy  on 
him  for  Jesus  Christ's  Sake. 
I  am.  Sir, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam  Johnson. 

June  17,  1777. 

Then,  in  response  to  a  piteous  appeal,  Johnson 
wrote  a  brief  letter  for  Dodd  to  send  to  the  King, 
begging  him  at  least  to  save  him  from  the  horror  and 
ignominy  of  a  public  execution;  and  this  was  accom- 
panied by  a  brief  note. 

Sir:  — 

I  most  seriously  enjoin  you  not  to  let  it  be  at  all  known 
that  I  have  written  this  letter,  and  to  return  the  copy  to 
Mr.  Allen  in  a  cover  to  me.  I  hope  I  need  not  tell  you  that 
I  wish  it  success,  but  I  do  not  indulge  hope. 

Sam  Johnson. 

As  the  time  for  Dodd's  execution  drew  near,  he 
wrote  a  final  letter  to  Johnson,  which,  on  its  deliv- 
ery, must  have  moved  the  old  man  to  tears.  It  was 
written  at  midnight  on  the  25th  of  June,  1777. 

Accept,  thou  great  and  good  heart,  my  earnest  and  fer- 
vent thanks  and  prayers  for  all  thy  benevolent  and  kind 
efforts  in  my  behalf.  Oh!  Dr.  Johnson!  as  I  sought  your 
knowledge  at  an  early  hour  in  life,  would  to  heaven  I  had 
cultivated  the  love  and  acquaintance  of  so  excellent  a  man ! 
I  pray  Gofl  most  sincerely  to  bless  you  with  the  highest 
transports  —  the  infelt  satisfaction  of  humane  and  benevo- 
lent exertions!  And  admitted,  as  I  trust  I  shall  be,  to  the 
realms  of  bliss  before  you,  I  shall  hail  your  arrival  there 
with  transport,s,  and  rejoice  to  acknowledge  that  you  were 
my  Comforter,  my  Advocate  and  my  Friend!  God  be  ever 
with  you! 


J^lfT~ 


Av  '/;^-v/^vv^lw3f  ^,  ^  Ai A,.^^^^  Y^h^  ^A^J 

'if'TCC,      S  ^A^t£t    /,A<Y  /z^o^^'t.    liZ-f-rr  c'rt^  /i^?e  JircM^ ^^aj^t^j^*4rr^. 

^'^  %/aA/t^it^  . 


t 


MR.  ALLEN'S  COPY  OF  THE  LAST  LETTER  DR.  DODD  SENT  DR.  JOHXSOX. 
DODD  WAS  HANGED  ON  JUNE  27,  1777 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  313 

The  original  letter  in  Dodd's  handwriting  was  kept 
by  Johnson,  who  subsequently  showed  it  to  Boswell, 
together  with  a  copy  of  his  reply  which  Boswell  calls 
"solemn  and  soothing,"  giving  it  at  length  in  the 
"Life."  My  copy  is  in  Allen's  hand,  but  there  is  a 
note  to  Allen  in  Dodd's  hand  which  accompanied  the 
original,  reading:  "Add,  dear  sir,  to  the  many  other 
favors  conferred  on  your  unfortunate  friend  that  of 
delivering  my  dying  thanks  to  the  worthiest  of  men. 
W.  D." 

Two  other  things  Johnson  did:  he  wrote  a  sermon, 
which  Dodd  delivered  with  telling  effect  to  his  fel- 
low convicts,  and  he  prepared  with  scrupulous  care 
what  has  been  called  Dr.  Dodd's  last  solemn  declara- 
tion. It  was  without  doubt  intended  to  be  read  by 
Dodd  at  the  place  of  execution,  but  unforeseen  cir- 
cumstances prevented.  Various  versions  have  been 
printed  in  part.  The  original  in  Johnson's  hand  is 
before  me  and  reads :  — 

To  the  words  of  dying  Men  regard  has  always  been 
paid.  I  am  brought  hither  to  suffer  death  for  an  act  of 
Fraud  of  which  I  confess  myself  guilty,  with  shame  such 
as  my  former  state  of  life  naturally  produces;  and  I  hope 
with  such  sorrow  as  The  Eternal  Son,  he  to  whom  the 
Heart  is  known,  will  not  disregard.  I  repent  that  I  have 
violated  the  laws  by  which  peace  and  confidence  are  es- 
tablished among  men ;  I  repent  that  I  have  attempted  to 
injure  my  fellow  creatures,  and  I  repent  that  I  have  brought 
disgrace  upon  my  order,  and  discredit  upon  Religion.  For 
this  the  law  has  sentenced  me  to  die.  But  my  offences 
against  God  are  without  name  or  number,  and  can  admit 
only  of  general  confession  and  general  repentance.  Grant, 


314      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Almighty  God,  for  the  Sake  of  Jesus  Christ,  tliat  my  re- 
pentance however  late,  however  imperfect,  may  not  be 
in  vain. 

Tlie  little  good  that  now  remains  in  my  power,  is  to 
warn  others  against  tliose  temptations  by  which  I  have 
been  seduced.  I  have  always  sinned  against  conviction; 
my  principles  have  never  been  shaken;  I  have  always  con- 
sidered the  Christian  religion,  as  a  revelation  from  God, 
and  its  Divine  Author,  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world;  but  the 
law  of  God,  though  never  disowned  by  me,  has  often  been 
forgotten.  I  was  led  astray  from  religious  strictness  by 
the  Vanity  of  Show  and  the  delight  of  voluptuousness. 
Vanity  and  pleasure  required  expense  disproportionate  to 
my  income.  Expense  brought  distress  upon  me,  and  dis- 
tress impelled  me  to  fraud. 

For  tliis  fraud,  I  am  to  die;  and  I  die  declaring  that 
however  I  have  offended  in  practice,  deviated  from  my  own 
precepts,  I  have  taught  others  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge 
the  true  way  to  eternal  happiness.  My  life  has  been  hypo- 
critical, but  my  ministry  has  been  sincere.  I  always  be- 
lieved and  I  now  leave  the  world  declaring  my  conviction, 
that  there  is  no  other  name  under  heaven  by  which  we 
can  be  saved,  but  only  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and 
I  entreat  all  that  are  here,  to  join  with  me,  in  my  last 
petition  that  for  the  Sake  of  Christ  Jesus  my  sins  may  be 
forgiven. 

Anything  more  gruesome  and  demoralizing  than 
an  eighteenth-century  hanging  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  imagine.  We  know  from  contemporary  ac- 
counts of  Dodd's  execution  that  it  differed  only  in 
detail  from  other  hangings,  which  were  at  the  time 
a  common  occurrence.  His  last  night  on  earth  was 
made  hideous  by  the  ringing  of  bells.  Under  the 
window  of  his  cell  a  small  bell  was  rung  at  frequent 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  315 

intervals  by  the  watch,  and  he  was  reminded  that 
he  was  soon  to  die,  and  that  the  time  for  repentance 
was  short.  At  daybreak  the  great  bell  of  St.  Sepul- 
chre's Church  just  over  the  way  began  to  toll,  as 
was  customary  whenever  prisoners  in  Newgate  were 
being  rounded  up  for  execution. 

"Hanging  Days"  were  usually  holidays.  Crowds 
collected  in  the  streets,  and  as  the  day  wore  on,  they 
became  mobs  of  drunken  men,  infuriated  or  de- 
lighted at  the  proceedings,  according  to  their  interest 
in  the  prisoners.  At  nine  o'clock  the  Felon's  Gate 
was  swung  open  and  the  prisoners  were  brought  out. 
On  this  occasion,  there  were  only  two;  frequently 
there  were  more  —  once  indeed  as  many  as  fifteen 
persons  were  hanged  on  the  same  day.  This  was 
counted  a  great  event. 

Dodd  was  spared  the  ignominy  of  the  open  cart 
in  which  the  ordinary  criminal  was  taken  to  the  gal- 
lows, and  a  mourning  coach  drawn  by  four  horses 
was  provided  for  him  by  some  of  his  friends.  This 
was  followed  by  a  hearse  with  an  open  coffin.  The 
streets  were  thronged.  After  the  usual  delays  the 
procession  started,  but  stopped  again  at  St.  Sepul- 
chre's, that  he  might  receive  a  nosegay  which  was 
presented  him,  someone  having  bequeathed  a  fund 
to  the  church  so  that  this  melancholy  custom  could 
be  carried  out.  Farther  on,  at  Holborn  Bar,  it  was 
usual  for  the  cortege  to  stop,  that  the  condemned 
man  might  be  regaled  with  a  mug  of  ale. 

Ordinarily  the  route  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn  was 


316      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

very  direct,  through  and  along  the  Tyburn  Road, 
now  Oxford  Street;  hut  on  this  occasion  it  had  been 
announced  that  the  procession  would  follow  a  round- 
about course  through  Pall  Mall.  Thus  the  pressure 
of  the  crowd  would  be  lessened  and  everyone  would 
have  an  opportunity  of  catching  a  glimpse  of  the  un- 
fortunate man;  and  everyone  did.  The  streets  were 
thronged,  stands  were  erected  and  places  sold,  win- 
dows along  the  line  of  march  were  let  at  fabulous 
prices.  In  Hyde  Park  soldiers  —  two  thousand  of 
them  —  were  under  arms  to  prevent  a  rescue.  The 
authorities  were  somewhat  alarmed  at  the  interest 
shown,  and  it  was  thought  best  to  be  on  the  safe  side; 
the  law  was  not  to  be  denied. 

Owing  to  the  crowds,  the  confusion,  and  the  out- 
of-the-way  course  selected,  it  w^as  almost  noon  when 
the  procession  reached  Tyburn.  We  do  not  often 
think,  as  we  whirl  in  our  taxis  along  Oxford  Street  in 
the  vicinity  of  Marble  Arch,  that  this  present  centre 
of  wealth  and  fashion  was  onc6  Tyburn.  There  is 
nothing  now  to  suggest  that  it  was,  a  century  or  tw^o 
ago,  an  unlovely  and  little-frequented  outskirt  of  the 
great  city,  given  over  to  "gallows  parties." 

At  Tyburn  the  crowd  was  very  dense  and  impa- 
tient: it  had  been  waiting  for  hours  and  rain  had  been 
falling  intermittently.  As  the  coach  came  in  sight, 
the  crowd  pressed  nearer;  Dodd  could  be  seen 
through  the  window.  The  poor  man  was  trying  to 
pray.  ]\Iore  dead  than  alive,  he  was  led  to  the  cart, 
on  which  he  was  to  stand  while  a  rope  was  placed 


A  MACARONI  PARSON  317 

about  his  neck.  There  was  a  heavy  downpour  of 
rain,  so  there  was  no  time  for  the  farewell  address 
which  Dr.  Johnson  had  so  carefully  prepared.  A 
sudden  gust  of  wind  blew  off  the  poor  man's  hat, 
taking  his  wig  with  it:  it  was  retrieved,  and  someone 
clapped  it  on  his  head  backwards.  The  crowd  was 
delighted;  this  was  a  hanging  worth  waiting  for. 
Another  moment,  and  Dr.  Dodd  was  swung  into 
eternity. 

Let  it  be  said  that  there  were  some  who  had  their 
doubts  as  to  the  wisdom  of  such  exhibitions.  Might 
not  such  frequent  and  public  executions  have  a  bad 
effect  upon  public  taste  and  morals?  "\Miy  no,  sir," 
said  Dr.  Johnson;  "executions  are  intended  to  draw 
spectators.  If  they  do  not  draw  spectators  they  do 
not  answer  their  purpose.  The  old  method  is  satis- 
factory to  all  parties.  The  public  is  gratified  by  a 
procession,  the  criminal  is  supported  by  it."  And  his 
biographer,  Hawkins,  remarks  complacently:  "We 
live  in  an  age  in  which  humanity  is  the  fashion." 

"And  so  they  have  hanged  Dodd  for  forgery,  have 
they.''"  casually  remarked  the  Bishop  of  Bristol,  from 
the  depths  of  his  easy-chair.   "I'm  sorry  to  hear  it." 

"How  so,  my  Lord?" 

"Because  they  have  hanged  him  for  the  least  of 
his  crimes." 


XII 

OSCAR  WILDE 

My  interest  in  Oscar  Wilde  is  a  very  old  story :  I  went 
to  hear  him  lecture  when  I  was  a  boy,  and,  boy-like, 
I  wrote  and  asked  him  for  his  autograph,  which  he 
sent  me  and  which  I  still  have. 

It  seems  strange  that  I  can  look  back  through 
thirty  years  to  his  visit  to  Philadelphia,  and  in 
imagination  see  him  on  the  platform  of  old  Horti- 
cultural Hall.  I  remember,  too,  the  discussion  which 
his  visit  occasioned,  preceded  as  it  was  by  the  publi- 
cation in  Boston  of  his  volume  of  poems,  the  English 
edition  having  been  received  with  greater  cordiality 
than  usually  marks  a  young  poet's  first  production 
—  for  such  it  practically  was. 

At  the  time  of  his  appearance  on  the  lecture  plat- 
form he  was  a  large,  well-built,  distinguished-look- 
ing man,  about  twenty-six  years  old,  with  rather 
long  hair,  generally  wearing  knee-breeches  and  silk 
stockings.  Any  impressions  which  I  may  have  re- 
ceived of  this  lecture  are  now  very  vague.  I  remem- 
ber that  he  used  the  word  "renaissance"  a  good  deal, 
and  that  at  the  time  it  was  a  new  word  to  me;  and 
it  has  always  since  been  a  word  which  has  rattled 
round  in  my  head  very  much  as  the  blessed  word 
"Mesopotamia"  did  in  the  mind  of  the  old  lady,  who 


CARICATURE  OF  OSCAR  WILDE 

From  an  original  drawing  by  Aubrey  Beardsley 


320      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

remarked  that  no  one  should  deprive  her  of  the  hope 
of  eternal  punishment. 

Now,  it  would  be  well  at  the  outset,  in  discussing 
Oscar  Wilde,  to  abandon  immediately  all  hope  of 
eternal  punishment  —  for  others.  My  subject  is  a 
somewhat  difficult  one,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  speak 
of  Wilde  without  overturning  some  of  the  more  or 
less  fixed  traditions  we  have  grown  up  with.  W^e  all 
have  a  lot  of  axioms  in  our  systems,  even  if  we  are 
discreet  enough  to  keep  them  from  our  tongues;  and 
to  do  Wilde  justice,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  free 
ourselves  of  some  of  these.  To  make  my  meaning 
clear,  take  the  accepted  one  that  genius  is  simply 
the  capacity  for  hard  work.  This  is  all  very  well  at 
the  top  of  a  copy-book,  or  to  repeat  to  your  son 
when  you  are  didactically  inclined;  but  for  the  pur- 
poses of  this  discussion,  this  and  others  like  it  should 
be  abandoned.  Having  cleared  our  minds  of  cant, 
we  might  also  frankly  admit  that  a  romantic  or  sin- 
ful life  is,  generally  speaking,  more  interesting  than 
a  good  one. 

Few  men  in  English  literature  have  lived  a  nobler, 
purer  life  than  Robert  Southey,  and  yet  his  very 
name  sets  us  a-yawning,  and  if  he  lives  at  all  it  is 
solely  due  to  his  little  pot-boiler,  become  a  classic, 
the  "Life  of  Nelson."  The  two  great  events  in 
Nelson's  life  were  his  meeting  with  Lady  Emma 
Hamilton  and  his  meeting  with  the  French.  Now,  , 
disguise  it  as  we  may,  it  still  remains  true  that,  in 
thinking  of  Nelson,  we  think  as  much  of  Lady  Emma 


OSCAR  WILDE  321 

as  we  do  of  Trafalgar.  Of  course,  in  saying  this  I 
realize  that  I  am  not  an  Englishman  making  a  pub- 
lic address  on  the  anniversary  of  the  great  battle. 

Southey*s  life  gives  the  lie  to  that  solemn  remark 
about  genius  being  simply  a  capacity  for  hard  work: 
if  it  were  so,  he  would  have  ranked  high;  he  worked 
incessantly,  produced  his  to-day  neglected  poems,  sup- 
ported his  family  and  contributed  toward  the  support 
of  the  families  of  his  friends.  He  was  a  good  man,  and 
worked  himself  to  death;  but  he  was  not  a  genius. 

On  the  other  hand,  Wilde  was ;  but  his  life  was  not 
good,  it  was  not  pure;  he  did  injury  to  his  friends; 
and  to  his  wife  and  children,  the  greatest  wrong  a 
man  could  do  them,  so  that  she  died  of  a  broken 
heart,  and  his  sons  live  under  an  assumed  name; 
yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  perhaps  to  some  extent 
by  reason  of  it,  he  is  a  most  interesting  personality, 
and  no  doubt  his  future  place  in  literature  will  be 
to  some  extent  influenced  by  the  fate  which  struck 
him  down  just  at  the  moment  of  his  greatest  success. 

Remenibering  Dr.  Johnson's  remark  that  in  lapi- 
dary work  a  man  is  not  upon  oath,  it  has  always 
seemed  to  me  that  something  like  the  epitaph  he 
wrote  for  Goldsmith's  monument  in  Westminster 
Abbey  might  with  equal  justice  have  been  carved 
upon  W  ilde's  obscure  tombstone  in  a  neglected  cor- 
ner of  Bagneux  Cemetery  in  Paris.  The  inscription 
I  refer  to  translates:  "He  left  scarcely  any  style  of 
writing  untouched  and  touched  nothing  that  he  did 
not  adorn." 


Sn      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

I  am  too  good  a  Goldsmithian  to  compare  Gold- 
smith, with  all  his  faults  and  follies,  to  Wilde,  with 
his  faults  and  follies,  and  vices  superadded;  but 
Wilde  wrote  "Dorian  Gray,"  a  novel  original  and 
powerful  in  conception,  as  powerful  as  "Dr.  Jekyll 
and  Mr.  Hyde";  and  remembering  that  Wilde  was 
also  an  essayist,  a  poet,  and  a  dramatist,  I  think  we 
may  fairly  say  that  he  too  touched  nothing  that  he 
did  not  adorn. 

But,  to  begin  at  the  beginning.  Wilde  was  not 
especially  fortunate  in  his  parents.  His  father  was 
a  surgeon-oculist  of  Dublin,  and  was  knighted  by 
the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  —  just  why,  does  not 
appear,  nor  is  it  important;  his  son  always  seemed 
a  little  ashamed  of  the  incident.  His  mother  was  the 
daughter  of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England. 
She  was  "advanced"  for  her  time,  wrote  prose  and 
verse,  under  the  7wm  dc  plume  of  "Speranza,"  which 
were  published  frequently  in  a  magazine,  which  was 
finally  suppressed  for  sedition.  If  Lady  Wilde  was 
emancipated  in  thought,  of  her  lord  it  may  be  said 
that  he  put  no  restraint  whatever  upon  his  acts. 
They  were  a  brilliant,  but  what  we  would  call  to-day 
a  Bohemian,  couple.  I  have  formed  an  impression 
that  the  father,  in  spite  of  certain  weaknesses  of  char- 
acter, was  a  man  of  solid  attainments,  while  of  the 
mother  someone  has  said  that  she  reminded  him  of 
a  tragedy  queen  at  a  suburban  theatre.  This  is  awful. 

Oscar  Wilde  was  a  second  son,  born  in  Dublin, 
on  the  16th  of  October,  1854.  He  went  to  a  school  at 


OSCAR  WILDE  323 

Enniskillen,  afterwards  to  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
and  finally  to  Magdalen  College,  Oxford.  He  had 
already  begun  to  make  a  name  for  himself  at  Trinity, 
where  he  won  a  gold  medal  for  an  essay  on  the  Greek 
comic  poets;  but  when,  in  June,  1878,  he  received 
the  Newdigate  Prize  for  English  verse  for  a  poem, 
"Ravenna,"  which  was  recited  at  the  Sheldonian 
Theatre  at  Oxford,  it  can  fairly  be  said  that  he  had 
achieved  distinction. 

While  at  Magdalen,  W'ilde  is  said  to  have  fallen 
under  the  influence  of  Ruskin,  and  spent  some  time 
in  breaking  stones  on  the  highways,  upon  which 
operation  Ruskin  was  experimenting.  It  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  work  for  its  own  sake  never  at- 
tracted Wilde :  it  was  the  reward  which  followed  — ■ 
breakfast-parties,  with  informal  and  unlimited  talk, 
in  Ruskin's  rooms. 

One  does  not  have  to  read  much  of  Wilde  to  dis- 
cover that  he  had  as  great  an  aversion  to  games,  which 
kept  him  in  the  open,  as  to  physical  labor.  Bernard 
Shaw,  that  other  Irish  enigma,  who  in  many  ways 
of  thought  and  speech  resembles  Wilde,  when  asked 
what  his  recreations  were,  replied,  "Anything  ex- 
cept sport."  Wilde  said  that  he  would  not  play 
cricket  because  of  the  indecent  postures  it  demanded; 
fox-hunting  —  his  phrase  will  be  remembered  — 
was  "the  unspeakable  after  the  uneatable."  But  he 
was  the  leader,  if  not  the  founder,  of  the  aesthetic 
cult,  the  symbols  of  which  were  peacock-feathers, 
sunflowers,  lilies,  and  blue  china.    His  rooms,  per- 


324      AIVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

haps  the  most  talked  about  in  Oxford,  were  beau- 
tifully paneled  in  oak,  decorated  with  porcelain  sup- 
posed to  be  very  valuable,  and  hung  with  old  en- 
gravings. From  the  windows  there  was  a  lovely  view 
of  the  River  (^herwell  and  the  beautiful  grounds  of 
Magdalen  College. 

He  soon  made  himself  the  most  talked-of  person 
in  the  place:  abusing  his  foes,  who  feared  his  tongue. 
His  friends,  as  he  later  said  of  someone,  did  not  care 
for  him  very  much  —  no  one  cares  to  furnish  mate- 
rial for  incessant  persiflage. 

When  he  left  Oxford  Oscar  Wilde  was  already  a 
well-known  figure:  his  sayings  were  passed  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  and  he  was  a  favorite  subject  for 
caricature  in  the  pages  of  "Punch."  Finally,  he  be- 
came known  to  all  the  world  as  Bunthorne  in  Gilbert 
and  Sullivan's  opera,  "Patience."  From  being  the 
most  talked-of  man  in  Oxford,  he  became  the  most 
talked-of  man  in  London  —  a  very  different  thing: 
many  a  reputation  has  been  lost  on  the  road  betw'een 
Oxford  and  London.  His  reputation,  stimulated  by 
long  hair  and  velveteen  knee-breeches,  gave  Whis- 
tler a  chance  to  say,  "Our  Oscar  is  knee  plush  ultra." 
People  compared  him  w'ith  Disraeli.  When  he  first 
became  the  talk  of  the  town,  great  things  were  ex- 
pected of  him;  just  what,  no  one  presumed  to  say. 
To  keep  in  the  going  while  the  going  was  good,  Wilde 
published  his  volume  of  Poems  (1881);  it  followed 
that  everyone  wanted  to  know  what  this  singular 
young  man  had  to  say  for  himself,  and  paid  half  a 


OSCAR  WILDE  S25 

guinea  to  find  out.  The  volume  immediately  went 
through  several  editions,  and,  as  I  have  mentioned, 
was  reprinted  in  this  country. 

Of  these  poems  the  "Saturday  Review'*  said, — 
and  I  thank  the  "Saturday  Review"  for  teaching 
me  these  words,  for  I  think  they  fitly  describe  nine 
tenths  of  all  the  poetry  that  gets  itself  published,  — 
"Mr.  Wilde's  verses  belong  to  a  class  which  is  the 
special  terror  of  the  reviewers,  the  poetry  which  is 
neither  good  nor  bad,  which  calls  for  neither  praise 
nor  blame,  and  in  which  one  searches  in  vain  for  any 
personal  touch  of  thought  or  music." 

It  was  at  this  point  in  his  career  that  Wilde  deter- 
mined to  show  himself  to  us:  he  came  to  America  to 
lecture;  was,  of  course,  interviewed  on  his  arrival 
in  New  York,  and  spoke  with  the  utmost  disrespect 
of  the  Atlantic. 

Considering  how  little  ballast  Wilde  carried,  his 
lectures  here  were  a  great  success:  "Nothing  suc- 
ceeds like  excess."  He  spoke  publicly  over  two  hun- 
dred times,  and  made  what  was,  for  him,  a  lot  of 
money.  Looking  back,  it  seems  a  daring  thing  to  do; 
but  Wilde  was  always  doing  daring  things.  To  lec- 
ture in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Boston  was  all 
very  well;  but  it  would  seem  to  have  required  cour- 
age for  Wilde,  fresh  from  Oxford,  his  reputation  based 
on  impudence,  long  hair,  knee-breeches,  a  volume  of 
poems,  and  some  pronounced  opinions  on  art,  to 
take  himself,  seriously,  west  to  Omaha  and  Denver, 
and  north  as  far  as  Halifax.    However,  he  went  and 


"OUR  OSCAR"  AS  HE  WAS  WHEN 
WE  LOANED  HIM  TO  AMERICA 

From  a  contemporary  EnglUh  caricature 


OSCAR  WILDE  327 

returned  alive,  with  at  least  one  story  which  will 
never  die.  It  was  Wilde  who  said  that  he  had  seen 
in  a  dance-hall  in  a  mining-camp  the  sign,  "Don't 
shoot  the  pianist;  he  is  doing  his  best."  The  success 
of  this  story  was  instant,  and  probably  prompted 
him  to  invent  the  other  one,  that  he  ^had  heard  of  a 
man  in  Denver  who,  turning  his  back  to  examine 
some  lithographs,  had  been  shot  through  the  head, 
which  gave  Wilde  the  chance  of  observing  how  dan- 
gerous it  is  to  interest  one's  self  in  bad  art.  He  re- 
marked also  that  Niagara  Falls  would  have  been  more 
wonderful  if  the  water  had  run  the  other  way. 

On  his  return  to  England  he  at  once  engaged  at- 
tention by  his  remark,  "There  is  nothing  new  in 
America  —  except  the  language."  Of  him,  it  was 
observed  that  Delmonico  had  spoiled  his  figure. 
From  London  he  went  almost  immediately  to  Paris, 
where  he  found  sufficient  reasons  for  cutting  his  hair 
and  abandoning  his  pronounced  habiliments.  Thus 
he  arrived,  as  he  said  of  himself,  at  the  end  of  his 
second  period. 

Wilde  spoke  French  fluently  and  took  steps  to 
make  himself  at  home  in  Paris;  with  what  success, 
is  not  entirely  clear.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of 
distinguished  people,  wrote  verses,  and  devoted  a 
good  deal  of  time  to  writing  a  play  for  Mary  Ander- 
son, "The  Duchess  of  Padua,"  which  was  declined 
by  her  and  was  subsequently  produced  in  this  coun- 
try by  Lawrence  Barrett  and  Minna  Gale.  In  spite 
of  their  efforts,  it  lived  for  but  a  few  nights. 


328      A^SIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Meanwhile  it  cost  money  to  live  in  Paris,  especially 
to  dine  at  fashionable  cafes,  and  Wilde  decided  to 
return  to  London;  but  making  ends  meet  is  no  easier 
there  than  elsewhere.  He  wrote  a  little,  lectured 
when  he  could,  and  having  spent  the  small  inheri- 
tance he  had  received  from  his  father,  it  seemed  that 
"Exit  Oscar"  might  fairly  be  written  against  him. 

But  to  the  gratification  of  some,  and  the  surprise 
of  all,  just  about  this  time  came  the  announcement 
of  his  marriage  to  a  beautiful  and  charming  lady 
of  some  fortune,  Constance  Lloyd,  the  daughter  of 
a  deceased  barrister.  WTiistler  sent  a  characteristic 
wire  to  the  church:  "May  not  be  able  to  reach  you 
in  time  for  ceremony;  don't  wait."  Indeed,  it  may 
here  be  admitted  that  in  an  encounter  between  these 
wits  it  was  Jimmie  WTiistler  who  usually  scored. 

Of  WTiistler  as  an  artist  I  know  nothing.  My 
friends  the  Pennells,  at  the  close  of  their  excellent 
biography,  say,  "His  name  and  fame  will  live  for- 
ever." This  is  a  large  order,  but  of  WTiistler,  with 
his  rapier-like  wit,  it  behooved  all  to  beware.  In  a 
weak  moment  WTlde  once  voiced  his  appreciation 
of  a  good  thing  of  WTiistler's  with,  "I  wish  I  had 
said  that."  Quick  as  a  flash,  Jimmie's  sword  was 
through  him,  and  forever:  "Never  mind,  Oscar,  you 
will."  It  may  be  that  the  Pennells  are  right. 

But  to  return.  WTth  Mrs.  WTlde's  funds,  her  hus- 
band's taste,  and  \Vhistler's  suggestions,  a  house 
was  furnished  and  decorated  in  Tite  Street,  Chelsea, 
and  for  a  time  all  went  well.    But  it  soon  became 


OSCAR  WILDE  329 

evident  that  some  fixed  income,  certain,  however 
small,  was  essential;  fugitive  verse  and  unsigned 
articles  in  magazines  afford  small  resource  for  an 
increasing  family.  Two  sons  were  born,  and,  driven 
by  the  spur  of  necessity,  Wilde  became  the  Editor 
of  "The  Woman's  World,"  and  for  a  time  worked 
as  faithfully  and  diligently  as  his  temperament  per- 
mitted; but  it  was  the  old  story  of  Pegasus  harnessed 
to  the  plough. 

Except  for  editorial  work,  the  next  few  years  were 
unproductive.  "Dorian  Gray,"  Wilde's  one  novel, 
appeared  in  the  summer  of  1890.  It  is  exceedingly 
difficult  to  place:  his  claim  that  it  was  the  work  of  a 
few  days,  written  to  demonstrate  to  some  friends 
his  ability  to  write  a  novel,  may  be  dismissed  as  un- 
true —  there  is  internal  evidence  to  the  contrary. 
It  was  probably  written  slowly,  as  most  of  his  work 
was.  In  its  first  form  it  appeared  in  "Lippincott's 
Magazine"  for  July,  1890;  but  it  was  subjected  to 
careful  revision  for  publication  in  book  form.  W^ilde 
always  claimed  that  he  had  no  desire  to  be  a  popular 
novelist  — •  "It  is  far  too  easy,"  he  said. 

"Dorian  Gray"  is  an  interesting  and  powerful,  but 
artificial,  production,  leaving  a  bitter  taste,  as  of 
aloes  in  the  mouth:  one  feels  as  if  one  had  been  han- 
dling a  poison.  The  law  compels  certain  care  in  the  use 
of  explosives,  and  poisons,  it  is  agreed,  are  best  kept 
in  packages  of  definite  shape  and  color,  that  they 
may  by  their  external  appearance  challenge  the  at- 
tention of  the  thoughtless.   Only  Roosevelt  can  tell 


330      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

without  looking  what  book  should  and  what  should 
not  bear  the  governmental  stamp,  "Guaranteed  to  be 
pure  and  wholesome  under  the  food  and  drugs  act." 
Few,  I  think,  would  put  this  label  on  "Dorian  Gray." 
Wilde's  own  criticism  was  that  the  book  was  inartis- 
tic because  it  has  a  moral.  It  has,  but  it  is  likely  to 
be  overlooked  in  its  general  nastiness.  In  "Dorian 
Gray"  he  betrays  for  the  first  and  perhaps  the  only 
time  the  decadence  which  was  subsequently  to  be  the 
cause  of  his  undoing. 

I  have  great  admiration  for  what  is  called,  and  fre- 
quently ridiculed  as,  the  artistic  temperament,  but 
I  am  a  believer  also  in  the  sanity  of  true  genius, 
especially  when  it  is  united,  as  it  was  in  the  case  of 
Charles  Lamb,  with  a  fine,  manly,  honest  bearing  to- 
ward the  world  and  the  things  in  it;  but  alone  it  may 
lead  us  to  yearn  with  Wilde 

To  drift  with  every  passion  till  my  soul 

Is  a  stringed  lute  on  which  all  winds  can  play. 

It  has  been  suggested  on  good  authority  that  it 
is  very  unpleasant  to  wear  one's  heart  upon  one's 
sleeve.  To  expose  one's  soul  to  the  elements,  how- 
ever interesting  in  theory,  must  be  very  painful  in 
practice :  Wilde  was  destined  to  find  it  so. 

Why  the  story  escaped  success  at  the  hands  of  the 
adapter  for  the  stage,  I  never  could  understand.  The 
clever  talk  of  the  characters  in  the  novel  should  be 
much  more  acceptable  in  the  quick  give-and-take  of 
a  society  play  than  it  is  in  a  narrative  of  several  hun- 
dred pages;  moreover,  it  abounds  in  situations  which 


OSCAR  WILDE  331 

are  intensely  dramatic,  leading  up  to  an  overwhelm- 
ing climax;  probably  it  was  badly  done. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  one  turns  from 
"Dorian  Gray"  —  which,  let  us  agree,  is  a  book 
which  a  young  girl  would  hesitate  to  put  in  the  hands 
of  her  mother  —  to  Wilde's  other  prose  work,  so 
different  in  character.  Of  his  shorter  stories,  his  fairy 
tales  and  the  rest,  it  would  be  a  delight  to  speak: 
many  of  them  are  exquisite,  and  all  as  pure  and  deli- 
cate as  a  flower,  with  as  sweet  a  perfume.  They  do  not 
know  Oscar  Wilde  who  have  not  read  "The  Young 
King  and  the  Star  Child,"  and  the  "Happy  Prince." 
That  they  are  the  work  of  the  same  brain  that  pro- 
duced "Dorian  Gray"  is  almost  beyond  belief. 

What  a  baffling  personality  was  Wilde's!  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  really  done  more  than  William  Morris 
to  make  our  homes  artistic,  and  who  is  at  one  with 
Ruskin  in  his  effort  that  our  lives  should  be  beautiful; 
he  had  a  message  to  deliver,  yet,  by  reason  of  his 
flippancy  and  his  love  of  paradox,  he  is  not  yet  rated 
at  his  real  worth.  It  is  difficult  for  one  who  is  first  of 
all  a  wit  to  make  a  serious  impression  on  his  listeners. 
I  think  it  is  Gilbert  who  says,  "Let  a  professed  wit 
say,  'pass  the  mustard,'  and  the  table  roars." 

Wilde  was  a  careful  and  painstaking  workman, 
serious  as  an  artist,  whatever  he  may  have  been  as 
a  man ;  and  in  the  end  he  became  a  great  master  of 
English  prose,  working  in  words  as  an  artist  does  in 
color,  trying  first  one  and  then  another  until  he  had 
secured  the  desired  effect,  the  effect  of  silk  which 


332      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Seccombe  speaks  of.  But  he  affected  idleness.  A 
story  is  told  of  his  spending  a  week-end  at  a  country 
house.  Pleading  the  necessity  of  working  while  the 
humor  was  on,  he  begged  to  be  excused  from  joining 
the  other  guests.  In  the  evening  at  dinner  his  hostess 
asked  him  what  he  had  accomplished,  and  his  reply 
is  famous.  "This  morning,"  he  said,  "I  put  a  comma 
in  one  of  my  poems."  Surprised  and  amused,  the 
lady  inquired  whether  the  afternoon's  work  had  been 
equally  exhausting.  "Yes,"  said  Wilde,  passing  his 
hand  wearily  over  his  brow,  "this  afternoon  I  took  it 
out  again." 

Just  about  the  time  that  London  had  made  up  its 
mind  that  Wilde  was  nothing  but  a  clever  man  about 
town,  welcome  as  a  guest  because  of  the  amusement 
he  afforded,  "The  Soul  of  Man  Under  Socialism" 
appeared  in  the  "Fortnightly  Magazine"  for  Feb- 
ruary, 1891.  London  was  at  once  challenged  and 
amazed.  This  essay  opens  with  a  characteristic  state- 
ment, one  of  those  peculiarly  inverted  paradoxes  for 
which  Wilde  was  shortly  to  become  famous.  "So- 
cialism," he  says,  "would  relieve  us  from  the  sordid 
necessity  of  living  for  others";  and  what  follows  is 
Wilde  at  his  very  best. 

What  is  it  all  about?  I  am  not  sure  that  I  know:  it 
seems  to  be  a  plea  for  the  individual,  perhaps  it  is  a 
defense  of  the  poor;  it  is  said  to  have  been  translated 
into  the  languages  of  the  downtrodden,  the  Jew,  the 
Pole,  the  Russian,  and  to  be  a  comfort  to  them;  I 
hope  it  is.   Do  such  outpourings  do  any  good,  do 


OSCAR  WILDE  333 

they  change  conditions,  is  the  millennium  brought 
nearer  thereby?  I  hope  so.  But  if  it  is  comforting  for 
the  downtrodden,  whose  wants  are  ill  supplied,  it  is  a 
sheer  delight  for  the  downtreader  who,  free  from  anx- 
iety, sits  in  his  easy -chair  and  enjoys  its  technical 
excellence. 

I  know  nothing  like  it:  it  is  as  fresh  as  paint,  and 
like  fresh  paint  it  sticks  to  one;  in  its  brilliant,  serious, 
and  unexpected  array  of  fancies  and  theories,  in 
truths  inverted  and  distorted,  in  witticisms  which  are 
in  turn  tender  and  hard  as  flint,  one  is  delighted  and 
bewildered.  Wilde  has  only  himself  to  blame  if  this, 
a  serious  and  beautiful  essay,  was  not  taken  seriously. 
"The  Soul  of  Man  Under  Socialism"  is  the  work  of 
a  consummate  artist  who,  taking  his  ideas,  disguises 
and  distorts  them,  polishing  them  the  while  until  they 
shine  like  jewels  in  a  rare  and  unusual  setting.  Nat- 
urally, almost  every  other  line  in  such  a  work  is 
quotable:  it  seems  to  be  a  mass  of  quotations  which 
one  is  surprised  not  to  have  heard  before. 

Interesting  as  Wilde's  other  essays  are,  I  will  not 
speak  of  them;  with  the  exception  of  "  Pen,  Pencil  and 
Poison,"  a  study  of  Thomas  GriflBths  Wainewright, 
the  poisoner,  they  will  inevitably  be  forgotten. 

Of  Wilde's  poems  I  am  not  competent  to  speak: 
they  are  full  of  Arcady  and  Eros;  nor  am  I  of  those 
who  believe  that  "every  poet  is  the  spokesman  of 
God."  A  book- agent  once  called  on  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  sought  to  sell  him  a  book  for  which  the  President 
had  no  use.   Failing,  he  asked  Lincoln  if  he  would  not 


M34       AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

write  an  indorsement  of  the  Work  which  would  enable 
him  to  sell  it  to  others.  Whereupon  the  President, 
always  anxious  to  oblige,  with  a  humor  entirely  his 
own,  wrote,  "Any  one  who  likes  this  kind  of  book  will 
find  it  just  the  kind  of  book  they  like."  So  it  is  with 
Wilde's  poetry:  by  many  it  is  highly  esteemed,  but 
I  am  inclined  to  regard  it  as  a  part  of  his  "literary 
wild  oats." 

After  several  attempts  in  the  field  of  serious 
drama,  in  which  he  was  unsuccessful,  by  a  fortunate 
chance  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  lighter  forms  of 
comedy,  in  which  he  was  destined  to  count  only  the 
greatest  as  his  rivals.  Pater  says  these  comedies  have 
been  unexcelled  since  Sheridan;  this  is  high  praise, 
though  not  too  high;  but  it  is  rather  to  contrast  than 
to  compare  such  a  grand  old  comedy  as  the  "School 
for  Scandal"  with,  say,  "The  Importance  of  Being 
Earnest."  They  are  both  brilliant,  both  artificial; 
they  both  reflect  in  some  manner  the  life  and  the  at- 
mosphere of  their  time;  but  the  mirror  which  Sheri- 
dan holds  up  to  nature  is  of  steel  and  the  picture  is 
hard  and  cold;  Wilde,  on  the  other  hand,  uses  an  ex- 
aggerating glass,  which  seems  specially  designed  to 
reflect  warmth  and  fluflSness. 

Wilde  was  the  first  to  produce  a  play  which  de- 
pends almost  entirely  for  its  success  on  brilliant  talk. 
In  this  field  Shaw  is  now  conspicuous;  he  can  grow 
the  flower  now  because  he  has  the  seed.  It  w  as  Wilde 
who  taught  him  how,  W  ilde  who,  in  four  light  come- 
dies, gave  the  English  stage  something  it  had  been 


OSCAR  WILDE  335 

without  for  a  century.  His  comedies  are  irresistibly 
clever,  sparkle  with  wit,  with  a  flippant  and  insolent 
levity,  and  withal  have  a  theatrical  dexterity  which 
Shaw's  are  almost  entirely  without.  While  greatly 
inferior  in  construction  to  Pinero's,  they  are  as  bril- 
liantly written;  the  plots  amount  to  almost  nothing: 
talk,  not  the  play,  is  the  thing;  and  but  for  their 
author's  eclipse  they  would  be  as  constantly  on  the 
boards  to-day  in  this  country  and  in  England  as  they 
are  at  present  on  the  Continent. 

The  first  comedy,  "Lady  Windermere's  Fan,"  was 
produced  at  the  St.  James's,  February  22,  1892.  Its 
success,  despite  the  critics,  was  instant:  full  of  saucy 
repartee,  overwrought  with  epigrams  of  the  peculiar 
kind  conspicuous  in  the  "Soul  of  Man,"  it  delighted 
the  audience.  "Punch"  made  a  feeble  pun  about 
Wilde's  play  being  tame,  forgetting  the  famous  dic- 
tum that  the  great  end  of  a  comedy  is  to  make  the 
audience  merry;  and  this  end  Wilde  had  attained,  and 
he  kept  his  audiences  in  the  same  humor  for  several 
years  —  until  the  end.  Of  his  plays  this  is,  perhaps, 
the  best  known  in  this  country.  It  was  successfully 
given  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  elsewhere,  only 
a  year  or  two  ago.  It  might,  I  think,  be  called  his 
"pleasant  play":  for  a  time  it  looks  as  if  a  pure  wife 
were  going  astray,  but  the  audience  is  not  kept  long 
in  suspense:  the  plot  can  be  neglected  and  the  lines 
enjoyed,  with  the  satisfactory  feeling  that  it  will  all 
come  out  right  in  the  end. 

"A  Woman  of  No  Importance"  is  in  my  judgment 


336      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

the  least  excellent  of  his  four  comedies;  it  might  be 
called  his  "unpleasant"  play:  it  is  two  acts  of  sheer 
talk,  in  Wilde's  usual  vein,  and  two  acts  of  acting. 
The  plot  is,  as  usual,  insignificant.  A  certain  lazy 
villain  in  high  official  position  meets  a  young  fellow 
and  offers  him  a  post  as  his  secretary.  The  boy,  much 
pleased,  introduces  his  mother,  and  the  villain  dis- 
covers that  the  boy  is  his  own  son.  The  son  insists 
that  the  father  should  marry  his  mother,  but  she 
declines.  The  father  offers  to  make  what  amends  he 
can,  loses  his  temper,  and  refers  to  the  lady  as  a 
woman  of  no  importance;  for  which  he  gets  his  face 
well  smacked.  The  son  marries  a  rich  American  Puri- 
tan. This  enables  Wilde  to  be  very  witty  at  the  ex- 
pense of  American  fathers,  mothers,  and  daughters. 
Tree  played  the  villain  very  well,  it  is  said. 

Never  having  seen  W^ilde's  next  play  acted,  I  once 
innocently  framed  this  statement  for  the  domestic 
circle:  "I  have  never  seen  'An  Ideal  Husband'";  and 
when  my  wife  sententiously  replied  that  she  had  never 
seen  one  either,  I  became  careful  to  be  more  explicit 
in  future  statements.  No  less  clever  than  the  others, 
it  has  plot  and  action,  and  is  interesting  to  the  end. 
Of  all  his  plays  it  is  the  most  dramatic.  On  its 
first  production  it  was  provided  with  a  splendid  cast, 
including  Lewis  W^aller,  Charles  Hawtrey,  Julia 
Neilson,  Maude  Millett,  and  Fanny  Brough.  In  the 
earlier  plays  all  the  characters  talked  Oscar  Wilde;  in 
this  Wilde  took  the  trouble,  for  it  must  have  been  to 
him  a  trouble,  to  conceal  himself  and  let  his  people 


OSCAR  WILDE  337 

speak  for  themselves:  they  stay  in  their  own  char- 
acters in  what  they  do  as  well  as  in  what  they  say. 
"An  Ideal  Husband"  was  produced  at  the  Hay- 
market  early  in  1905,  and  a  few  weeks  later,  at  the 
St.  James's,  "The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest." 

Wilde  called  this  a  trivial  comedy  for  serious  peo- 
ple. It  is  clever  beyond  criticism;  but,  as  one  critic 
says,  one  might  as  well  sit  down  and  gravely  discuss 
the  true  inwardness  of  a  souffle.  In  it  Wilde  fairly 
lets  himself  loose;  such  talk  there  never  was  before;  it 
fairly  bristles  with  epigram;  the  plot  is  a  farce;  it  is 
a  mental  and  verbal  extravaganza.  Wilde  was  at  his 
best,  scintillating  as  he  had  never  done  before,  and 
doing  it  for  the  last  time.  He  is  reported  to  have  said 
that  the  first  act  is  ingenious,  the  second  beautiful, 
and  the  third  abominably  clever.  Ingenious  it  is,  but 
its  beauty  and  cleverness  are  beyond  praise.  To  have 
seen  the  lovely  Miss  Millard  as  Cecily,  the  country 
girl,  to  have  heard  her  tell  Gwendolen,  the  London 
society  queen  (Irene  Vanbrugh),  that  "flowers  are  as 
common  in  the  country  as  people  are  in  London,"  is 
a  delight  never  to  be  forgotten. 

Wilde  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  fame.  That  the 
licenser  of  the  stage  had  forbidden  the  performance 
of  "Salome"  was  a  disappointment;  but  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt had  promised  to  produce  it  in  Paris,  and,  not 
thinking  that  when  his  troubles  came  upon  him  she 
would  break  her  word,  he  was  able  to  overcome  his 
chagrin. 

Only  a  year  or  two  before,  he  had  been  in  need,  if 


338      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

not  in  abject  poverty.  He  was  now  in  receipt  of  large 
royalties.  No  form  of  literary  effort  makes  money 
faster  than  a  successful  play.  Wilde  had  two,  run- 
ning at  the  best  theatres.  His  name  was  on  every  lip 
in  London;  even  the  cabbies  knew  him  by  sight;  he 
had  arrived  at  last,  but  his  stay  was  only  for  a  mo- 
ment. Against  the  advice  and  wishes  of  his  friends, 
with  "fatal  insolence,"  he  adopted  a  course  which, 
had  he  been  capable  of  thought,  he  must  have  seen 
would  inevitably  lead  to  his  destruction. 

To  those  mental  scavengers,  the  psychologists,  I 
leave  the  determination  of  the  exact  nature  of  the 
disease  which  was  the  cause  of  Wilde's  downfall;  it 
is  enough  for  me  to  know  that  whom  the  gods  would 
destroy  they  first  make  mad. 

The  next  two  years  Wilde  spent  in  solitary  and 
degrading  seclusion ;  his  sufferings,  mental  and  phys- 
ical, can  be  imagined.  Many  have  fallen  from 
heights  greater  than  his,  but  none  to  depths  more 
humiliating.  Many  noble  men  and  dainty  women 
have  been  subjected  to  greater  indignities  than 
he,  but  they  have  been  supported  by  their  belief 
in  the  justice  or  honor  of  the  cause  for  which  they 
suffered. 

Wilde  was  not,  however,  sustained  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  innocence,  nor  was  he  so  mentally 
dwarfed  as  to  be  unable  to  realize  the  awfulness  of 
his  fate.  The  literary  result  was  "De  Profundis.'* 
Written  while  in  prison,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to 
his  friend  Robert  Ross,  it  was  not  published  until 


OSCAR  WILDE  339 

five  years  after  his  death:  indeed,  only  about  one  third 
of  the  whole  has  as  yet  appeared  in  English. 

*'De  Profundis"  may  be  in  parts  offensive,  but  as 
a  specimen  of  English  prose  it  is  magnificent;  it  is  by 
way  of  becoming  a  classic:  no  student  of  literature 
can  neglect  this  cry  of  a  soul  lost  to  this  world,  in- 
tent upon  proving  —  I  know  not  what  —  that  art  is 
greater  than  life,  perhaps.  Much  has  been  written  in 
regard  to  it:  by  some  it  is  said  to  show  that  even  at 
the  time  of  his  deepest  degradation  he  did  not  appre- 
ciate how  low  he  had  fallen;  that  to  the  last  he  was 
only  a  poseur  —  a  phrase-maker;  that,  genuine  as  his 
sorrow  was,  he  nevertheless  was  playing  with  it,  and 
was  simply  indulging  himself  in  rhetoric  when  he 
said,  "I,  once  a  lord  of  language,  have  no  words  in 
which  to  express  my  anguish  and  my  shame." 

One  would  say  that  it  was  not  the  sort  of  book 
which  would  become  popular;  nevertheless,  more  than 
twenty  editions  have  been  published  in  English,  and 
it  has  been  translated  into  French,  German,  Italian, 
and  Russian. 

It  was  inevitable  that  "De  Profundis"  should 
become  the  subject  of  controversy:  Oscar  Wilde's 
sincerity  has  always  been  challenged;  he  was  called 
affected.  His  answer  to  this  charge  is  complete  and 
conclusive:  *'The  value  of  an  idea  has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  sincerity  of  the  man  who  ex- 
presses it." 

For  many  years,  indeed  until  quite  recently,  his 
name  cast  a  blight  over  all  his  work.    This  was  in- 


340      AMEMTIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

evitable,  but  it  was  inevitable  also  that  the  work  of 
such  a  genius  should  sooner  or  later  be  recognized. 

Only  a  few  years  ago  I  heard  a  cultured  lady  say, 
"I  never  expected  to  hear  his  name  mentioned  in  po- 
lite society  again."  But  the  time  is  rapidly  approach- 
ing when  Oscar  Wilde  will  come  into  his  own,  when 
he  will  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  greatest  and  most 
original  writers  of  his  time.  WTien  shall  we  English- 
speaking  people  learn  that  a  man's  work  is  one  thing 
and  his  life  another? 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Wilde's  life  did  not 
end  with  "De  Profundis";  but  his  misfortunes  were 
to  continue.  After  his  release  from  prison  he  went  to 
France,  where  he  lived  under  the  name  of  Sebastian 
Melmoth:  but  as  Sherard,  his  biographer,  says,  "He 
hankered  after  respectability."  It  was  no  longer  the 
social  distinction  which  the  unthinking  crave  when 
they  have  all  else :  this  great  writer,  he  who  had  been 
for  a  brief  moment  the  idol  of  cultured  London,  sought 
mere  respectability,  and  sought  it  in  vain. 

Only  when  he  was  neglected  and  despised,  miser- 
able and  broken  in  spirit,  sincere  feeling  at  last  over- 
came the  affectation  which  was  his  real  nature  and 
he  wrote  his  one  great  poem,  "The  Ballad  of  Read- 
ing Gaol."  No  longer  could  the  "Saturday  Review" 
"search  in  vain  for  the  personal  touch  of  thought 
and  music":  the  thought  is  there,  very  simple  and 
direct  and  personal  without  a  doubt:  the  music  is  no 
longer  the  modulated  noise  of  his  youth.  The  Ballad 
is  an  almost  faultless  work  of  art.    WTiat  could  be 


OSCAR  WILDE  341 

more  impressive  than  the  description  of   daybreak 

in  prison :  — 

At  last  I  saw  the  shadowed  bars, 

Like  a  lattice  wrought  in  lead. 

Move  right  across  the  whitewashed  wall 

That  faced  my  three-plank  bed, 

And  I  knew  that  somewhere  in  the  world 

God's  dreadful  dawn  was  red. 

The  life  begun  with  such  promise  drew  to  a  close: 
an  outcast,  deserted  by  his  friends,  the  few  who 
remained  true  to  him  he  insulted  and  abused.  He 
became  dissipated,  wandered  from  France  to  Italy 
and  back  again.  In  mercy  it  were  well  to  draw  the 
curtain.  The  end  came  in  Paris  with  the  close  of 
the  century  he  had  done  so  much  to  adorn.  He  died 
on  November  30,  1900,  and  was  buried,  by  his  faith- 
ful friend,  Robert  Ross,  in  a  grave  which  was  leased 
for  a  few  years  in  Bagneux  Cemetery. 

The  kindness  of  Robert  Ross  to  Oscar  Wilde  is 
one  of  the  most  touching  things  in  literary  history. 
The  time  has  not  yet  come  to  speak  of  it  at  length, 
but  the  facts  are  known  and  will  not  always  be  with- 
held. Owing  largely  to  his  efforts,  a  permanent  rest- 
ing-place was  secured  a  few  years  ago  in  the  most 
famous  cemetery  in  France,  the  Pere  Lachaise. 
There,  in  an  immense  sarcophagus  of  granite,  curi- 
ously carved,  were  placed  the  remains  of  him  who 
wrote :  — 

"Society,  as  we  have  constituted  it,  will  have  no 
place  for  me,  has  none  to  offer;  but  Nature,  whose 
sweet  rains  fall  on  unjust  and  just  alike,  will  have 


342      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

clefts  in  the  rock  where  I  may  hide,  and  sweet  valleys 
in  whose  silence  I  may  weep  undisturbed.  She  will 
hang  the  night  with  stars  so  that  I  may  walk  abroad 
in  the  darkness  without  stumbling,  and  send  the 
wind  over  my  footprints  so  that  none  may  track  me 
to  my  hurt;  she  will  cleanse  me  in  great  waters  and 
with  bitter  herbs  make  me  whole." 

It  is  too  early  to  judge  Wilde's  work  entirely  apart 
from  his  life:  to  do  so  will  always  be  diflBcult:  we  could 
do  so  the  sooner  if  we  had  a  Dr.  Johnson  among  us  to 
speak  with  authority  and  say,  "Let  not  his  misfor- 
tunes be  remembered,  he  was  a  very  great  man.'* 


XIII 

A  WORD  IN  MEMORY 

To  have  been  born  and  lived  all  his  life  in  Philadel- 
phia, yet  to  be  best  known  in  London  and  New  York; 
to  have  been  the  eldest  son  of  a  rich  man  and  the 
eldest  grandson  of  one  of  the  richest  men  in  America, 
yet  of  so  quiet  and  retiring  a  disposition  as  to  excite 
remark;  to  have  been  but  a  few  years  out  of  college, 
yet  to  have  achieved  distinction  in  a  field  which  is 
commonly  supposed  to  be  the  browsing-place  of  age; 
to  have  been  relatively  unknown  in  his  life  and  to 
be  immortal  in  his  death  —  such  are  the  brief  out- 
lines of  the  career  of  Harry  Elkins  Widener. 

It  is  a  curious  commentary  upon  human  nature 
that  the  death  of  one  person  well  known  to  us  affects 
us  more  than  the  deaths  of  hundreds  or  thousands 
not  known  to  us  at  all.  It  is  for  this  reason,  perhaps, 
at  a  time  when  the  papers  bring  us  daily  their  rec- 
ord of  human  suffering  and  misery  from  the  war  in 
Europe,  that  I  can  forget  the  news  of  yesterday  and 
live  over  again  the  anxious  hours  which  followed  the 
brief  announcement  that  the  Titanic,  on  her  maiden 
voyage,  the  largest,  finest,  and  fastest  ship  afloat,  had 
struck  an  iceberg  in  mid-ocean,  and  that  there  were 
grave  fears  for  the  safety  of  her  passengers  and  crew. 
There  the  first  news  ceased. 


344      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

The  accident  had  occurred  at  midnight;  the  sea 
was  perfectly  cahn,  the  stars  shone  clearly;  it  was 
bitter  cold.  The  ship  was  going  at  full  speed.  A  slight 
jar  was  felt,  but  the  extent  of  the  mjury  was  not 
realized  and  few  passengers  were  alarmed.  When 
the  order  to  lower  the  boats  was  given  there  was 
little  confusion.  The  order  went  round,  "Women 
and  children  first."  Harry  and  his  father  were  lost, 
his  mother  and  her  maid  were  rescued. 

In  all  that  subsequently  appeared  in  the  press,  — 
and  for  days  the  appalling  disaster  was  the  one  sub- 
ject of  discussion,  —  the  name  of  Harry  Elkins  Wid- 
ener  appeared  simply  as  the  eldest  son  of  George  D. 
Widener.  Few  knew  that,  quite  aside  from  the  finan- 
cial prominence  of  his  father  and  the  social  distinc- 
tion and  charm  of  his  mother,  Harry  had  a  reputa- 
tion which  was  entirely  of  his  own  making.  He  was 
a  born  student  of  bibliography.  Books  were  at  once 
his  work,  his  recreation,  and  his  passion.  To  them 
he  devoted  all  his  time;  but  outside  the  circle  of  his 
intimate  friends  few  understood  the  unique  and  lov- 
able personality  of  the  man  to  whom  death  came 
so  suddenly  on  April  15,  1912,  shortly  after  he  had 
completed  his  twenty-seventh  year. 

His  knowledge  of  books  was  truly  remarkable. 
In  the  study  of  rare  books,  as  in  the  study  of  an 
exact  science,  authority  usually  comes  only  with 
years.  With  Harry  Widener  it  was  different.  He  had 
been  collecting  only  since  he  left  college,  but  his 
intense  enthusiasm,  his  painstaking  care,  his  devo- 


HARRY  ELKIXS  WIDENER 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY  345 

tion  to  a  single  object,  his  wonderful  memory,  and, 
as  he  gracefully  says  in  the  introduction  to  the  cata- 
logue of  some  of  the  more  important  books  in  his 
library,  "The  interest  and  kindness  of  my  grand- 
father and  my  parents,"  had  enabled  him  in  a  few 
years  to  seciu-e  a  number  of  treasures  of  which  any 
collector  might  be  proud. 

Harry  Elkins  Widener  was  born  in  Philadelphia 
on  January  3,  1885.  He  received  his  early  educa- 
tion at  the  Hill  School,  from  which  he  was  gradu- 
ated in  1903.  He  then  entered  Harvard  University, 
where  he  remained  fom*  years,  receiving  his  bache- 
lor's degree  in  1907.  It  was  while  a  student  at  Har- 
vard that  he  first  began  to  show  an  interest  in  book- 
collecting;  but  it  was  not  until  his  college  days  were 
over  that,  as  the  son  of  a  rich  man,  he  found,  as 
many  another  man  has  done,  that  the  way  to  be 
happy  is  to  have  an  occupation. 

He  lived  with  his  parents  and  his  grandfather  in 
their  palatial  residence,  Lynnewood  Hall,  just  out- 
side Philadelphia.  He  was  proud  of  the  distinction 
of  his  relatives,  and  used  to  say,  "We  are  a  family 
of  collectors.  My  grandfather  collects  paintings,  my 
mother  collects  silver  and  porcelains.  Uncle  Joe  col- 
lects everything,"  —  which  indeed  he  does,  —  "and 
I,  books." 

Book-collecting  soon  became  with  him  a  very  seri- 
ous matter,  a  matter  to  which  everything  else  was 
subordinated.  He  began,  as  all  collectors  do,  with 
unimportant  things  at  first;    but  how  rapidly  his 


346      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

taste  developed  may  be  seen  from  glancing  over  the 
pages  of  the  catalogue  of  his  library,  which,  strictly 
speaking,  is  not  a  library  at  all  —  he  would  have  been 
the  last  to  call  it  so.  It  is  but  a  collection  of  perhaps 
three  thousand  volumes;  but  they  were  selected  by 
a  man  of  almost  unlimited  means,  with  rare  judg- 
ment and  an  instinct  for  discovering  the  best.  Money 
alone  will  not  make  a  bibliophile,  although,  I  con- 
fess, it  develops  one. 

His  first  folio  of  Shakespeare  was  the  Van  Ant- 
werp copy,  formerly  Locker  Lampson's,  one  of  the 
finest  copies  known;  and  he  rejoiced  in  a  copy  of 
"Poems  Written  by  Wil.  Shakespeare,  Gent,"  1640, 
in  the  original  sheepskin  binding.  His  "Pickwick," 
if  possibly  inferior  in  interest  to  the  Harry  B.  Smith 
copy,  is  nevertheless  superb:  indeed  he  had  two,  one 
"in  parts  as  published,  with  all  the  points,"  another 
a  presentation  copy  to  Dickens's  friend,  William 
Harrison  Ains worth.  In  addition  he  had  several 
original  drawings  by  Seymour,  including  the  one  in 
which  the  shad-bellied  Mr.  Pickwick,  having  with 
some  difiiculty  mounted  a  chair,  proceeds  to  address 
the  Club.  The  discovery  and  acquisition  of  this  draw- 
ing, perhaps  the  most  famous  illustration  ever  made 
for  a  book,  is  indicative  of  Harry's  taste  as  a  collector. 

One  of  his  favorite  books  was  the  Countess  of 
Pembroke's  own  copy  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  "Ar- 
cadia," and  it  is  indeed  a  noble  volume;  but  Harry's 
love  for  his  mother,  I  think,  invariably  led  him,  when 
he  was  showing  his  treasures,  to  point  out  a  sen- 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY  347 

tence  written  in  his  copy  of  Cowper's  "Task."  The 
book  had  once  been  Thackeray's,  and  the  great 
novelist  had  written  on  the  frontispiece,  *'A  great 
point  in  a  great  man,  a  great  love  for  his  mother.  A 
very  fine  and  true  portrait.  Could  artist  possibly 
choose  a  better  position  than  the  above?  W.  M. 
Thackeray."  "Isn't  that  a  lovely  sentiment?" 
Harry  would  say;  "and  yet  they  say  Thackeray  was 
a  cynic  and  a  snob."  His  "Esmond"  was  presented 
by  Thackeray  to  Charlotte  Bronte.  His  copy  of  the 
"Ingoldsby  Legends"  was  unique.  In  the  first  edi- 
tion, by  some  curious  oversight  on  the  part  of  the 
printer,  page  236  had  been  left  blank,  and  the  error 
was  not  discovered  until  a  few  sheets  had  been 
printed.  In  a  presentation  copy  to  his  friend,  E.  R. 
Moran,  on  this  blank  page,  Barham  had  written :  — 

By  a  blunder  for  which  I  have  only  myself  to  thank. 
Here's  a  page  has  been  somehow  left  blank. 
Aha !  my  friend  Moran,  I  have  you.  You  '11  look 
In  vain  for  a  fault  in  one  page  of  my  book! 

signing  the  verse  with  his  nom  de  plume,  Thomas 
Ingoldsby. 

Indeed,  in  all  his  books,  the  utmost  care  was  taken 
to  secure  the  copy  which  would  have  the  greatest  hu- 
man interest:  an  ordinary  presentation  copy  of  the 
first  issue  of  the  first  edition  would  serve  his  purpose 
only  if  he  were  sure  that  the  dedication  copy  was  un- 
obtainable. His  Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson"  was 
the  dedication  copy  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  with  an 
inscription  in  the  author's  hand. 


348      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

He  was  always  on  the  lookout  for  rarities,  and  Dr. 
Rosenbach,  in  the  brief  memoir  which  serves  as  an 
introduction  to  the  Catalogue  of  his  Stevenson  col- 
lection, says  of  him:  — 

"I  remember  once  seeing  him  on  his  hands  and 
knees  under  a  table  in  a  bookstore.  On  the  floor  was 
a  huge  pile  of  books  that  had  not  been  disturbed  for 
years.  He  had  just  pulled  out  of  the  debris  a  first 
edition  of  Swinburne,  a  presentation  copy,  and  it  was 
good  to  behold  the  light  in  his  face  as  he  exclaimed, 
'This  is  better  than  working  in  a  gold  mine.'  To 
him  it  was  one." 

His  collection  of  Stevenson  is  a  monument  to  his 
industry  and  patience,  and  is  probably  the  finest  col- 
lection in  existence  of  that  much-esteemed  author. 
He  possessed  holograph  copies  of  the  Vailima  Letters 
and  many  other  priceless  treasures,  and  he  secured  the 
manuscript  of,  and  published  privately  for  Stevenson 
lovers,  in  an  edition  of  forty-five  copies,  an  autobi- 
ography written  by  Stevenson  in  California  in  the 
early  eighties.  This  item,  under  the  title  of  "Memoirs 
of  Himself,'*  has  an  inscription,  "Given  to  Isabel 
Stewart  Strong  .  .  .  for  future  use,  when  the  under- 
writer is  dead.  With  love,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson." 
The  catalogue  of  his  Stevenson  collection  alone,  the 
painstaking  work  of  his  friend  and  mentor,  Dr.  Rosen- 
bach,  makes  an  imposing  volume  and  is  an  invaluable 
work  of  reference  for  Stevenson  collectors. 

Harry  once  told  me  that  he  never  traveled  without 
a  copy  of  "Treasure  Island,"  and  knew  it  practically 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY 


349 


MEMOIRS    OF  "HIMSELF 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 


PsETTEO  nou  TBS  OSIOItlAX  MAMUSCUrr 
nt  Tax  POSSESSION  OF 

HARRY  ELKINS  WIDENER 


by  heart.   I,  myself,  am  not  averse  to  a  good  book  as  a 

traveling  companion ;  but  in  my  judgment,  for  constant 

reading,  year  in  and 

year  out,  it  should 

be  a  book  which  sets 

you  thinking,  rather 

than  a  narrative  like 

"Treasure  Island," 

but  —  chacun  a  son 

gout. 

But  it  were  te- 
dious to  enumerate 
his  treasures,  nor  is 
it  necessary.  They 
will  ever  remain,  a 
monument  to  his 
taste  and  skill  as 
a  collector,  in  the 
keeping  of  Harvard 
University  —  his 
Alma  Mater.  It  is,  however,  worth  while  to  attempt 
to  fix  in  some  measure  the  individuality,  the  rare 
personality  of  the  man.  I  cannot  be  mistaken  in 
thinking  that  many,  looking  at  the  wonderful  library 
erected  in  Cambridge  by  his  mother  in  his  memory, 
may  wish  to  know  something  of  the  man  himself. 

There  is  in  truth  not  much  to  tell.  A  few  dates 
have  already  been  given,  and  when  to  these  is  added 
the  statement  that  he  was  of  retiring  and  studious 
disposition,  considerate  and   courteous,  little  more 


PBILAOZLfKIA 

rOS  PUVATK  OUTUBUTION  OKLT 

1912 


350      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

remains  to  be  said.  He  lived  with  and  for  his  books, 
and  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was  saying,  "  Now 
if  you  will  put  aside  that  cigar  for  a  moment,  I  will 
show  you  something.  Cigar  ashes  are  not  good  for 
first  editions";  and  a  moment  later  some  precious 
volume  would  be  on  yofir  knees.  What  collector  does 
not  enjoy  showing  his  treasures  to  others  as  apprecia- 
tive as  himself.'*  Many  delightful  hours  his  intimates 
have  passed  in  his  library,  which  was  also  his  bed- 
room, —  for  he  wanted  his  books  about  him,  where 
he  could  play  with  them  at  night  and  where  his  eye 
might  rest  on  them  the  first  thing  in  the  morning,  — 
but  this  was  a  privilege  extended  only  to  true  book- 
lovers.  To  others  he  was  unapproachable  and  almost 
shy.  Of  unfailing  courtesy  and  an  amiable  and  lov- 
ing disposition,  his  friends  were  very  dear  to  him. 
"Bill,"  or  someone  else,  "is  the  salt  of  the  earth," 
you  would  frequently  hear  him  say. 

"Are  you  a  book-collector,  too.^"  his  grandfather 
once  asked  me  across  the  dinner-table. 

Laughingly  I  said,  "I  thought  I  was,  but  I  am  not 
in  Harry's  class." 

To  which  the  old  gentleman  replied,  —  and  his  eye 
beamed  with  pride  the  while,  —  "I  am  afraid  that 
Harry  will  impoverish  the  entire  family." 

I  answered  that  I  should  be  sorry  to  hear  that,  and 
suggested  that  he  and  I,  if  we  put  our  fortunes  to- 
gether, might  prevent  this  calamity. 

His  memory  was  most  retentive.  Once  let  him  get 
a  fact  or  a  date  imbedded  in  his  mind  and  it  was  there 


BEVERIA'  CHEW.  OF  NEW  YORK.  AVHO  COMBIXES  A  PROFOUND  LOVE 
OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  WITH  AN  INEXHAUSTIBLE  KNOWLEIXiE 
OF  FIRST  EDITIONS 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY  351 

forever.  He  knew  the  name  of  every  actor  he  had  ever 
seen,  and  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the  play  last  year 
and  the  year  before.  He  knew  the  name  of  every 
baseball  player  and  had  his  batting  and  running 
average.  When  it  came  to  the  chief  interest  of  his 
life,  his  thirst  for  knowledge  was  insatiable.  I  re- 
member one  evening  when  we  were  in  New  York 
together,  in  Beverly  Chew's  library,  Harry  asked  Mr. 
Chew  some  question  about  the  eccentricities  of  the 
title-pages  of  the  first  edition  of  Milton's  "Paradise 
Lost."  Mr.  Chew  began  rolling  off  the  bibliographical 
data,  like  the  ripe  scholar  that  he  is,  when  I  suggested 
to  Harry  that  he  had  better  make  a  note  of  what  Mr. 
Chew  was  saying.  He  replied,  "  I  should  only  lose  the 
paper;  while  if  I  get  it  in  my  head  I  will  put  it  where 
it  can't  be  lost;  that  is,"  he  added,  "  as  long  as  I  keep 
my  head." 

And  his  memory  extended  to  other  collections  than 
his  own.  For  him  to  see  a  book  once  was  for  him  to 
remember  it  always.  If  I  told  him  I  had  bought  such 
and  such  a  book,  he  would  know  from  whom  I  bought 
it  and  all  about  it,  and  would  ask  me  if  I  had  noticed 
some  especial  point,  which,  in  all  probability,  had 
escaped  me. 

He  was  a  member  of  several  clubs,  including  the 
Grolier  Club,  the  most  important  club  of  its  kind  in 
the  world.  The  late  J.  P.  Morgan  had  sent  word  to 
the  chairman  of  the  membership  committee  that  he 
would  like  Harry  made  a  member.  The  question  of 
his  seconder  was  waived :  it  was  understood  that  Mr. 


352      AMENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

Morgan's  endorsement  of  his  protege's  qualifications 
was  sufficient. 

It  was  one  night,  when  we  were  in  New  York  to- 
gether during  the  first  Hoe  sale,  that  I  had  a  conver- 
sation with  Harry,  to  which,  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
events,  I  have  often  recurred.  We  had  dined  together 
at  my  club  and  had  gone  to  the  sale;  but  there  was 
nothing  of  special  interest  coming  up,  and  after  a 
half  hour  or  so,  he  suggested  that  we  go  to  the  theatre. 
I  reminded  him  that  it  was  quite  late,  and  that  at  such 
an  hour  a  music-hall  would  be  best.  He  agreed,  and 
in  a  few  moments  we  were  witnessing  a  very  different 
performance  from  the  one  we  had  left  in  the  Anderson 
auction  rooms;  but  the  performance  was  a  poor  one. 
Harry  was  restless  and  finally  suggested  that  we  take 
a  walk  out  Fifth  Avenue.  During  this  walk  he  con- 
fessed to  me  his  longing  to  be  identified  and  remem- 
bered in  connection  with  some  great  library.  He  ex- 
panded this  idea  at  length.  He  said:  "I  do  not  wish  to 
be  remembered  merely  as  a  collector  of  a  few  books, 
however  fine  they  may  be.  I  want  to  be  remembered 
in  connection  with  a  great  library,  and  I  do  not  see 
how  it  is  going  to  be  brought  about.  Mr.  Hunting- 
ton and  Mr.  Morgan  are  buying  up  all  the  books,  and 
Mr.  Bixby  is  getting  the  manuscripts.  When  my 
time  comes,  if  it  ever  does,  there  will  be  nothing  left 
for  me  —  everything  will  be  gone!" 

We  spent  the  night  together,  and  after  I  had  gone 
to  bed  he  came  to  my  room  again,  and  calling  me  by 
a  nick-name,  said,  "I  have  got  to  do  something  in 


i 

,      1 

E 

laa      J^ 

J 

•/ 

•• 
>' 

MR.  HUXTIXGTON  AMONG  HIS  BOOKS 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY  353 

connection  with  books  to  make  myself  remembered. 
What  shall  it  be?" 

I  laughingly  suggested  that  he  write  one,  but  he 
said  it  was  no  jesting  matter.  Then  it  came  out  that 
he  thought  he  would  establish  a  chair  at  Harvard  for 
the  study  of  bibliography  in  all  its  branches.  He  was 
much  disturbed  by  the  lack  of  interest  which  great 
scholars  frequently  evince  toward  his  favorite  subject. 

With  this  he  returned  to  his  own  room,  and  I  went 
to  sleep;  but  I  have  often  thought  of  this  conversa- 
tion since  I,  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  learned  that 
his  mother  was  prepared,  in  his  memory,  to  erect 
the  great  building  at  Harvard  which  is  his  monument. 
His  ambition  has  been  achieved.  Associated  with 
books,  his  name  will  ever  be.  The  great  library  at 
Harvard  is  his  memorial.  In  its  sanctum  sanctorum 
his  collection  will  find  a  fitting  place. 

We  lunched  together  the  day  before  he  sailed  for 
Europe,  and  I  happened  to  remark  at  parting,  "This 
time  next  week  you  will  be  in  London,  probably,  lunch- 
ing at  the  Ritz.'* 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "very  likely  with  Quaritch." 

WTiile  in  London  Harry  spent  most  of  his  time  with 
that  great  bookseller,  the  second  to  bear  the  name  of 
Quaritch,  who  knew  all  the  great  book-collectors  the 
world  over,  and  who  once  told  me  that  he  knew  no 
man  of  his  years  who  had  the  knowledge  and  taste 
of  Harry  Widener.  "  So  many  of  your  great  American 
collectors  refer  to  books  in  terms  of  steel  rails;  with 
Harry  it  is  a  genuine  and  all-absorbing  passion,  and 


354      AJVIENITIES  OF  BOOK-COLLECTING 

he  is  so  entirely  devoid  of  side  and  affectation."  In 
tliis  he  but  echoed  what  a  friend  once  said  to  me  at 
Lynnewood  Hall,  where  we  were  spending  the  day; 
*'The  marvel  is  that  Harry  is  so  entirely  unspoiled 
by  his  fortune." 

Harry  was  a  constant  attendant  at  the  auction 
rooms  at  Sotheby's  in  London,  at  Anderson's  in  New 
York,  or  wherever  else 'good  books  were  going.  He 
chanced  to  be  in  London  when  the  first  part  of  the 
Huth  library  was  being  disposed  of,  and  he  was  anx- 
ious to  get  back  to  New  York  in  time  to  attend  the 
final  Hoe  sale,  where  he  hoped  to  secure  some  books, 
and  bring  to  the  many  friends  he  would  find  there  the 
latest  gossip  of  the  London  auction  rooms. 

Alas!  Harry  had  bought  his  last  book.  It  was  an 
excessively  rare  copy  of  Bacon's  "Essaies,"  the  edi- 
tion of  1598.  Quaritch  had  secured  it  for  him  at  the 
Huth  sale,  and  as  he  dropped  in  to  say  good-bye  and 
give  his  final  instructions  for  the  disposition  of  his 
purchases,  he  said:  "I  think  I'll  take  that  little  Bacon 
with  me  in  my  pocket,  and  if  I  am  shipwrecked  it  will 
go  with  me."  And  I  know  that  it  was  so.  In  all  the 
history  of  book-collecting  this  is  the  most  touching 
story. 

The  death  of  Milton's  friend,  Edward  King,  by 
drowning,  inspired  the  poet  to  write  the  immortal 
elegy,  "Lycidas." 

Who  would  not  sing  for  Lycidas?  — 
He  must  not  float  upon  his  watery  bier 
Unwept. 


A  WORD  IN  MEMORY 


355 


When  Shelley's  body  was  cast  up  by  the  waves  on  the 
shore  near  Via  Reggio,  he  had  a  volume  of  Keats 's 
poems  in  his  pocket,  doubled  back  at  "  The  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes."  And  in  poor  Harry  Widener's  pocket  there 
was  a  Bacon,  and  in  this  Bacon  we  might  have  read, 
"The  same  man  that  was  envied  while  he  lived  shall 
be  loved  when  he  is  gone." 


CAMURIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA      000  018  298  o 


